Louis Lobong, the Governor of East Equatoria State - Credit | Charles Wote/Eye Radio | Nov. 26, 2021

The Governor of East Equatoria State has appealed to the national government to fund the construction of the feeder roads before the census and the general elections.

In 2019, the National government embarked on the construction of three major highways.

These include the Juba-Bor highway, Juba-Rumbek highway and the rehabilitation of the Juba-Nimule highway.

Governor Louis Lobong called on the national government to secure loans and give to each states its share to build feeder roads.

“We believe the state will pay them gradually to enable the state procure road construction equipment to rehabilitate all the feeder roads that connect the state capital, to counties before the fourth coming election and census, Payams and Bomas,” Lobong said at 5th governors’ Forum in Juba.

“If we don’t do that I don’t know how we are going to conduct the election and census because there are some places that are inaccessible.”

South Sudan has one of the world’s most underdeveloped roads networks.

The total estimated track length in the country is approximately 90,200km, which includes approximately 14,000 km of primary and secondary roads, and 6000km of tertiary tracks, according to reports.

The current interstate and international roads network consists of around 5,000km of gravel roads with approximately 300km of sealed roads.

Currently only one international road, the 192km stretch between Juba and Nimule on the Ugandan border is sealed.

The majority of other sealed roads are urban roads within the capital city Juba.

All other national, interstate and urban roads consist of badly or non-maintained dirt roads.