Residents of Kajo-Keji County of Central Equatoria State have turned up for a communal work exercise in rehabilitating more than ten kilometres of road connecting the town square to ease the provision of social services.
Inyani Moses, a resident of the area, told Radio Tamazuj on Thursday that hundreds of residents mobilized and started rehabilitating the Mere Airstrip road, Airstrip-Kajo-Keji hospital and Wudu centres.
He said the poor condition of roads had affected access to health centres, schools, markets and government offices.
“Access in terms of roads for movement is very challenging here in Kajo-Keji town, we could not access the airstrip by road, health centre, market centre and no roads to the school centres and we decided as a community to voluntarily work on the roads. Yesterday (Wednesday), we faced a situation where a sick woman was carried on stretcher bed to the airstrip to be transported for medical care in Juba and have seen the road situation is so bad,” Inyani said.
Keji Mary, another resident of Kajo-Keji town, said many women and school-going children are facing movement difficulties in Kajo-Keji town.
She said once the road is rehabilitated, it will improve mobility and access to social centres.
“Local people here turned up in big numbers because since June, we could not even move up to the airstrip and as residents we shall also have another round of road repairs next week to clear more road networks using hand tools like houses, and if the roads are clean, it will help us access health services at the hospital,” she said.
Duku Edward, another resident of Kajo-Keji town, said they decided to participate in road maintenance works so that the local population enjoy movement from Kangapo Two and Mere Center.
“We announced a road works, and people voluntarily turned up because Kangapo, Lire, Reconcile areas have been cut off from the airstrip and Mere areas, and we are here to maintain the worst road stretches because if we don’t do that, we will continue to suffer as people of Kajo-Keji,” Duku said.
For his part, Kajo-keji County commissioner Eresto Kenyi said despite a lack of funds and technical machinery to support road works in the county. Residents have united to manually rehabilitate more than 10 kilometres in the town square.
Kenyi said residents in other payams of the county are also implementing similar approaches to open roads connecting bomas to the Payam headquarters.
He praised the community and called on them to continue opening up road networks in the county. “We have worked on about 5 kilometres or road stretch, and other people are working in their payams and some of the roads like Wudu connecting Lokojo up to Leiko, and we are planning to work on these routes, and in total it will take over ten kilometres, and I have seen people in Komoju Boma working on the road connecting the community to the girls’ school in the area.”
The commissioner and his area residents are appealing to the government and development partners to support the road and bridge construction programs in the area to encourage voluntary returnees to settle in the county.
Kajo-Keji County is one of the counties in Central Equatoria State badly affected by the 2016 conflict, which forced thousands of citizens into refugee camps in neighbouring Uganda.