Actor protests rising traffic deaths as KRG road maintenance plans stall
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Hunar Tahir, a stage actor, recently lost friends in a serious car accident. Angered by the poor condition of roads in the Kurdistan Region, he decided to launch a creative protest – by pouring mud over his head next to a main road.
“In Kurdish culture, putting mud on your head is the ultimate disillusionment and expression of strongest protest against something. I poured a bowl of mud over my head in protest at bad road conditions and the death of drivers and passengers. It was a protest against the government to pay attention to these roads so that people no longer suffer,” Tahir told Rudaw.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has admitted that roads, especially the ones outside cities, are in poor conditions. An increase in the number of vehicles and bad road conditions has led to a rise in car accidents.
Following the events of October 16 and the closure of the highway between Erbil and Pirde, traffic has increased on Koya’s narrow road. This has led to more car accidents.
“The closure of Erbil-Pirde road has put much pressure on Erbil-Koya road because Koya-Taqtaq, Koya-Degala roads have now become the main roads of travel to Erbil for the people of Sulaimani and Kirkuk,” Colonel Zahir Mohammed, director of transportation in Koya, told Rudaw.
“Accidents on Koya road have increased by 80 percent after the road between Erbil and Pirde was shut down. In 2017 alone, 15 people died from car accidents. Yet, in 2018, 115 car accidents have so far occurred, killing 10 people and injuring 170 more,” he added.
The road between Erbil and Koya is a two-lane highway, almost 60 kilometers in length. The government had dedicated a budget to building a motorway between these two cities, and construction work began on the project. Work was suspended however when the economic crisis struck. If completed, travel between these two would be shortened by 40 kilometers.
Major Fazil Hajy, spokesperson for Erbil traffic police, said the road between Erbil and Koya is a military route, which is “normal to connect a city to a town, but unfit to connect two countries. This road currently connects Iraq to Turkey. All the goods transported to southern Iraq are transported through this road which has now become an international road, but it is in a bad condition.”
“In the past, 500 to 1,000 vehicles were using the road every day. Nowadays, up to nearly 5,000 cars use it daily,” he added.
In 2010, the KRG prepared a 20-year master plan to turn all main roads into two-lane highways. Again, the plan was held back by the economic crisis.
“By 2013, we had 94 projects lined up with a budget of 2.256 trillion dinars, with each having been given its code,” Zana Mustafa Uzeri, the director general of planning at the ministry of reconstruction, told Rudaw.
“Eight of these projects were completed, 22 were completed with their contracts ended, work is being carried out on 15 of them, 32 of them have stopped. The expenses of these projects are 1.364 trillion. Nearly 50 percent of the expenses of these projects have been given, and the half remains.”
According to the master plan, nearly 1,000 kilometers of road in Kurdistan should have been made two-lane by 2022.
“Thus far, only 150 kilometers of these roads have been turned double-sided, and work is being done on 156 more. We were supposed to complete 3,000 kilometers by 2015 and plan for 300 more. By 2019, we had to complete 700 kilometers, and complete 1,000 by 2022,” Uzeri said.
“We have given 94 projects to contractors. The government owes a lot of money to other contractors. We owed 50 billion dinars to the contractor in building the tunnel in Zakho, but gave him some money recently. We are in debt by 12 billion dinars for the project of Kore-Shaqlawa-Qandil.”
Uzeri also spoke about standardizing the roads in the Kurdistan Region.
“None of the roads built in Kurdistan have international standards. However, international standards are being applied on building the Kore-Shaqlawa-Qandil road, 90 percent of which has now been completed. The Dukan-Darbandikhan road will be built to international standards too.”
The main problem for roads in the Kurdistan Region is lorries and tankers, which damage the surfaces and create traffic.
“We have scales. We charge cargo trucks and give the money to finance ministry. Forty percent of the money would go to repairing the roads. These roads are constantly maintained. But they get damaged early. That is why we cannot repair all the roads with the revenue we make," Uzeri said.
Separate roads for cargo trucks and containers is one possibility.
“We can broaden the roads, but it is difficult to dedicate special roads for trucks under these conditions,” he said.
Car accidents are the second biggest cause of death in the Kurdistan Region, and has been rising in recent years. According to data collected by the transportation directorate in the Kurdistan Region, more than 10,000 people died, over 10,000 more were injured, and nearly 400 more were disabled in car accidents over the past 15 years.
In the first five months of 2018 there were 1,577 car accidents, killing 235 people and injuring 2,508.
According to figures produced by the Kurdistan Region’s transportation directorate, there were over 1,469,000 cars in the Kurdistan Region by the end of 2017, excluding military vehicles.
Colonel Zahir, director of transportation in Koya, thinks the private sector should managed the roads.
“Because work on most road projects has stopped, the government has to change its road strategy by giving the road projects to the private sector. Drivers should be charged for using the roads and their maintenance. This is in the interests of the government and people as well because this puts no financial strain on the government, car accidents will decrease, and drivers will reach their destination earlier,” he told Rudaw.