Kuwait's Roads, Streets, And Highways Continue To Deteriorate

Despite having been launched about three and a half years ago, the road resurfacing plan by the Ministry of Works and the Public Authority for Roads and Land Transport is still under way. Those who complain about the roads' deterioration and escalating dangers have little effect.

In spite of plans to pay more attention to the asphalt mix and improve the streets immediately after the November 2018 rains, the plans appear to have been hindered by many bureaucratic hurdles and administrative hurdles, slow implementation, and many other issues.

Almost all of the country's highways and streets have potholes and rough patches, a problem that has been going on for years and has failed to calm tempers of angry motorists.

Because of the deterioration of the rims and tires caused by the lack of adequate street maintenance, large potholes cause fatal accidents and damage the rims and tires, forcing car owners to replace them at short intervals.

Millions of dinars are available each year, whether for maintenance work carried out by the Ministry of Works and the maintenance sector's share amounts to approximately 50 million dinars of the budget over the last several years; nonetheless, nothing has changed.

There are reports that both PART and Ministry of Public Works lack sufficient funds to complete road maintenance at the present time.

Maintenance budget of about 50 million dinars a year is divided into 14 items, including maintenance of government buildings and squares. Share of internal roads is about 12 million dinars a year.

The sources noted that despite the limited budget, most governorates do not have a maintenance contract. For instance, there is no maintenance contract in the Capital Governorate, and in Hawali there are only two health contracts and two emergency maintenance contracts, all of which expire in January 2021, and the General Maintenance Contract for Hawalli, Rumaithiya, Hittin, and Al Shuhada roads, as well as the Maidan Hawally contract, expires in January 2021.

Due to a severe shortage of contracts, the ongoing contracts involved in fixing road problems in various regions across the country have exhausted their budgets.

A source at the Ministry of Public Works noted the ministry has a large number of contracts in the Center for Public Tenders, and is awaiting the approval of the budget in order to sign those contracts.

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