Engineer Jeremia Turic Bairiak

The director general in the Ministry of Transport, Roads and Bridges says insecurity and lack of legal clarity is putting off investors in South Sudan.

Engineer Jeremia Turic Bairiak told Eye Radio’s Dawn Show that as a result, construction of an additional bridge on the Nile in Juba has been delayed, jeopardizing the safety of people using the only available bridge, which is congested.

He said the Ministry has signed a Memorandum Of Understanding with four Chinese companies to build major roads in the country but the projects have been put on hold because of lack of funds and poorly stated guidelines for investors.

“We have signed a Memorandum Of Understanding with four Chinese companies; three on the road from Juba to Bor to Malakal to Renk, and one on the road from Juba to Yei to Kaia. The problem of funders is a big problem for South Sudan mainly because of instability. I think they have a fear that the country is not stable and they don’t want to run the risk. The second one is that the investment policy and bank guarantees are not clear for the investors,’’ he said.

The director for roads and bridges in the Ministry of Transport, Roads and Bridges, Engineer Otim Bong, told The Dawn Show that construction of the Freedom Bridge will take an extra two years.

“The preparation of that bridge took us about three years until we realized that finally signed – that was in September last year and the contractors starting mobilizing and if you had a chance of going to the site you must have seen enough stock of materials that have already been placed. Because of the recent incidents, they had to withdraw and contract’s obligation is that once there’s a ‘force majeure’, we have to suspend once but I have to assure you that it’s not going to be permanently suspended. We have already communicated to the Embassy of Japan as well as JICA to let the contractor know that everything is ok and we guess very soon they will have to mobilize and get back to the site. And this bridge is very, very important. We rely entirely on one bridge across the Nile which was built back in 1972 and without an additional bridge anything can happen to this bridge because of the heavy traffic that we tend to get now from Easter African countries,’’ he said.

South Sudan also faces a number of challenges in the sectors of roads and bridges during the rainy season.