South Sudan unable to complete Juba-Bahr el Ghazal highway as gov’t fail to give crude oil to contractor  

JUBA – South Sudan government is unable to complete the construction of the Juba-Bahr el Ghazal highway due to a number of problems including the shortages of funds and resistance from local communities in Terekeka for the road’s construction, a senior government official has said.

John Kenyi Sasa, the undersecretary at the ministry of roads and bridges told reporters during an inspection visit on Friday that the company that was to be paid in form of crude oil has not been paid by the government since it started the project.

“The first challenge is funding issues. This company started working in 2019 through crude oil for road, but they have not been paid for two years. The crude oil has not been lifted to the company. The company has been using their own resources to help us complete this section [Juba-Terekeka],” Kenyi said.

He added that local communities who are not happy over their land are making resistance against the construction of the road, making it difficult for the company to go ahead with the construction which would have seen a progress currently.

“This section should have finished a long time ago, but we hit a problem with the local communities along this road due to issues of gravels, which took all our time and effort to discuss and agree with them. That is why I mentioned challenges,” Kenyi said.