The Institute for Equipment Management (IGE) has been criticized for not doing enough to properly maintain roads.
National MP Angelina Rangel said that the road from Baucau to Lospalos municipality, particularly the Laga-Laivai to Lospalos section, was heavily damaged.
When parliament has not yet approved funding for road maintenance projects, she said it was up to the IGE to find a temporary solution.
She said the government should provide petrol to the IGE so that it could transport some machinery to Baucau and Lospalos to do some temporary works so that cars and motorbikes could still pass.
She said while road maintenance was the responsibility of the government, the IGE’s role was to monitor any issues to ensure rural communities still had access to local roads.
In response to the issue, the Minister of Public Works, Transport, and Communication (MPWTC), Gastão de Sousa, said tenders had been called for the Baucau to Lospalos road project, which will be funded through a loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
He said the project would be implemented by the end of the year.
He said it was unnecessary for IGE to fix the road from Baucau to Lospalos as the government had already received a loan from ADB to repair the road.
However, Dili resident Eduardo Martins said that despite the National Parliament approving the budget for road construction every year, infrastructure issues had still not been resolved.
“Every year we always spend money for road maintenance, but it continues to get damaged,” he said.
