The Civil Engineering Contractor July 2019 | Page 13

INFRA AFRICA
President of Tanzania Dr John Joseph Magufuli kicked off
construction of the Mbinga – Mbamba Bay Road Project
by laying the foundation stone in a ceremony in April 2019.
Global consulting engineering company SMEC is providing
construction supervision on the project.
Located in the southern part of Tanzania, the Mbinga
– Mbamba Bay Road project involves upgrading 67km
of road to bitumen standard. It is part of the Mtwara
Development Corridor Road Project which will link the
Indian Ocean in the Mtwara region with Lake Nyasa on
the Mbamba Bay side.
Upon completion, this road will support economic growth
by facilitating movement of people and agricultural products
from neighbouring areas to market centres in the region,
as well as enabling interstate trade between Tanzania and its
neighbouring countries Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.
The project is expected to be completed in January 2021. nn
Major road upgrade project launched in Tanzania
Tanzania President John Magufuli laying the foundation stone
for the project.
Studies recently completed by consulting engineers JG Afrika
have informed the design of the rehabilitation of a strategic
road that connects Tin Can Island Port to major commercial
centres in Lagos State, Nigeria. The existing access road from
Tin Can Island and the six-lane expressway that connects
Apapa Wharf, one of Nigeria’s major commercial centres, to
Oworonshoki was built as early as the 1970s and has since
fallen into a serious state of disrepair.
This has contributed to the severe vehicle congestion
comprising mainly trucks that use the road to travel between
the port and Oworonshoki every day. JG Afrika proposed a
continuously-reinforced concrete pavement design to better
cope with the growing number of heavy commercial vehicles
travelling between Apapa Wharf and Oworonshoki every day.
The design is similar to the technology deployed in the
construction of South Africa’s Ben Schoeman highway.
This design has replaced the initial suggestion of using
a conventional jointed concrete pavement that would
ultimately develop slab tilting and stepping on the extremely
soft subgrade material encountered along sections of the
existing road from Apapa to Oworonshoki.
Pavement specialist Emile Horak led the JG Afrika team
that undertook the pavement evaluation, previously played
an instrumental role in assisting the contractor introduce
in-situ recycling equipment to the West African country.
“Using this technology, combined with the concrete paver,
the contractor will be able to complete the extensive
rehabilitation required in a significantly shorter period than
www.civilsonline.co.za
JG Afrika helps pave the way forward for the rehabilitation of strategic road network
Port of Lagos, Apapa — the largest container terminal in
Nigeria (Global Construction Review, 2017)
is possible constructing a conventional asphalt pavement.
This is a major advantage considering that the contractor
will be working in an extremely built-up area,” Horak says.
JG Afrika was appointed by the contractor to undertake
the pavement evaluation in 2018, and these critical insights
have been incorporated into the final rehabilitation design
by Yolas Consulting, a Nigerian engineering consultancy
working on behalf of AG Dangote Construction.
A detailed assessment of the condition of the road
pavements and a geotechnical investigation of material
used in the existing road were undertaken as part of the
project. In addition, JG Afrika undertook an extensive
investigation of all available construction materials to
build the road and structures. nn
CEC July 2019 | 11