Namibia’s road network, on which its strategy to be a regional logistics hub is reliant, is deteriorating due to under-funding, according to the Road Fund Authority (RFA).Counter-measures include a proposal to increase fuel levies and take stricter action against overloading.In April, the president signed the Vehicle Mass Act 2024.Fines will be determined by the damage caused to the roads.The liability for payment of the fines extends beyond operators and vehicle owners. The Act states: “The Roads Authority, in terms of a performance-based scheme, may impose duties and liabilities in terms of this Act on the consignor or the consignee or any other person identified in the log istics chain.”There are permanent weighbridges on all the main trucking routes.The RFA warns in its five-year business plan for April 2023 to March 2028 that the government decision to take over the regulation of road user charges from the RFA will lead to a serious shortfall in funding for the 46 000km road network.RFA recommendations to the finance and public enterprise ministers to up road user charges seem to have been ignored. The increases which have been implemented are “substantially inadequate to achieve the objective of the RFA Act of a ‘safe and efficient road sector,’” the RFA warns in its business plan.According to the Namibian Mot or Veh icle Accident Fund, the number of road accidents in the country rose from 484 in the first quarter of 2023 to 812 over the same period in 2024.Fatalities were up from 114 to 128, and injuries from 1 488 to 1 522.In November 2023, Ali Ipinge, chief executive of the RFA, repeated the warning that the road system was under strain when he told stakeholders that there was a funding gap of N$3.6 billion (the same in rand). The fuel levy of N$1.78 per litre was well below the adjusted benchmark of N$2.58 per litre.The warning was repeated by Roads Authority (RA) divisional manager Oshoveli Hiveluah, who pointed out that 25% of Namibian roads had been built 50 or more years ago.“Even though we are building new roads, we are losing more.”Roadworks have not come to a standstill, however. In May 2023, they launched a N$15-billion five-year Integrated Strategic Business Plan (ISBP) to expand the national road network as well as tar gravel roads.
