The Road Fund and its Stakeholders have reflected on the quality of service they offer to the customers, being the road users, during a recent Stakeholder Engagement Meeting organized by the Road Fund, at their offices in Maseru.

In his opening remarks, the Road Fund Secretariat Engineer Mr. Tšeliso Polaki reminded the Road Implementing Agencies that the road users expect quality roads in return to the road user charges they pay to the Road Fund, hence Road Fund cannot longer disassociate itself from the bad state of the roads.

“We are receiving negative feedback from our customers (road users) regarding the quality of the roads, the customers need to be satisfied with the services that we provide because we collect funds from them, and they have a right to complain if they are dissatisfied with our services,” Mr Polaki reiterated.

He also stated that there is more money that is being lost due to poor construction or road maintenance, indicating that if the roads are constructed or maintained correctly, they last long thus saving funds.

He also encouraged the agencies to make sure that the contractors they engage understand and comply with all the requirements that are expected from them in order to assure quality of their work, further encouraging the agencies to also monitor the contractors.

Mr. Polaki concluded by urging the agencies to improve the quality of their work, mentioning that the agencies should strive hard to submit the reports needed by the Fund in time and communicate with the Fund if they are facing some challenges, have queries or questions.

The meeting was between the Road Fund as the financier and the Road Implementing Agencies representatives from Roads Directorate, Maseru City Council and Ministry of Local Government and Chieftainship.

The Stakeholder engagement meetings’ sole purpose is to strengthen the working relationship and communication between Road Fund and its Stakeholders and to discuss challenges as well as possible solutions.

From the discussions, the participants acknowledged Road Fund’s plea and promised to improve the quality of work in order to attain value for money and mostly to meet the expectations of the customers.

The Road Fund maintains relations with the Agencies both at Technical level and at high level led by the Principals.