WHO REALLY CARES ABOUT TIMELY MAINTENANCE?
By: Joaquin Caraballo, Consultant
Very few people do. This is ironic and
incredible. Even though several individuals and independent institutions insist on the
need to orient an important part of the road investment towards maintenance, in practice
not much gets done. Most of the financing (local and external) goes to rehabilitation
(which is lack of timely and appropriate maintenance). Let us discuss the points of view
(or actions, rather) of the actors or stakeholders involved.
The IMF: No recurrent costs in the
budget, as a mechanism to cut down in "uncritical" activities. Maintenance can
wait. You can not spend much on recurrent and unnecessary expenditures. We only accept
certain capital investments in the budget or accepted as per the signed agreement.
Earmarking is out of the question. And any money specifically assigned to maintenance is
earmarking.
International Banks Macroeconomists: In
order to control the deficit, no funds should be spent on maintenance. Countries should
keep their recurrent expenditures at a minimum. Nothing serious happens if you skip
maintenance. We do not really care what the road sector specialists say. It is an order
from above, anyway. Do not promote, accept or recommend "highway Maintenance
Funds" or similar setups, since this is a form of earmarking, and this is not
allowed, as IMF says.
International Banks Road Operations
Officers/Project Managers: Sufficient amounts should be spent on routine maintenance,
but if the people above (IMF, Macroeconomists, Financial Directors) insist on cut backs,
it is OK with me. I keep insisting whenever appropriate, without creating an internal
problem. Now, if the Government officials do not care much about maintenance either, we
will go with rehabilitation. Besides, road maintenance is a lot of administrative work,
and big firms pressure for big contracts. Let us then prepare a new Loan for
rehabilitation, since at least some money will go to the roads, and this way it is much
easier to get some funds to work with.
Regional Banks: No funds are available
for routine and even periodic maintenance. Little funds are available for road
stabilization and pavement. Large funds are available for road rehabilitation and large
projects. Economic analysis is not critical, and we have to cover the voids or the
projects not financed by the large Banks, but let us keep talking about maintenance to our
clients. We now are not inclined to finance institutional studies, including those related
to maintenance, such as Maintenance Management Systems, Planning Systems, and so forth,
even though we have done it in the past. We are interested in capital investments.
The Ministries of Finance: We have to cut
on recurrent expenditures, to comply with IMF and the large Banks. Since maintenance is
not critical (the roads are not going to be destroyed in one year), let us cut maintenance
budgets? We do not see the results of maintenance expenditures. We see the results of
large projects. Besides, Roads people do not have a strong case when discussing and
defending their budget. We are following IMF and World Bank macroeconomic theory, anyway.
The Ministry in charge of Roads: Let us
request funds for maintenance. Depending on what we get, we will adjust our work plans. In
any case, I did not build those roads, so I am not going to spend money on projects build
by the guys from the other political party. Let us spend the money on "our
roads". If roads deteriorate, we will request a new Loan for road rehabilitation,
which is a lot easier. If the people from the Banks insist on some maintenance programs,
we will go along with that, in order to have access to the large Loans. The Banks say that
they do not finance maintenance. I wonder, if it is so good, why don’t they finance
it? But they do finance rehabilitation, which is the opposite. Why? Well, let us go ahead
with the preparation of the new Loan.
Director of Roads: Maintenance is
important, but what can I do if I do not control the budget? If we get any funds for
maintenance we will execute them, but we rather have a few big contracts for road
rehabilitation. This way we save in administration and we concentrate on more important
projects. The people from Finance should give us more money. The people from the
Banks who come here tell us that the maintenance budget should be larger, and that we have
to spend more in maintenance. Why don’t they help us get the money for maintenance?
Maybe their bosses have a different idea? We are in charge of spending the money, not in
charge of lobbying for the money. Getting more money is somebody else’s
responsibility. I am too busy to develop and implement a Maintenance Management System,
which I am not sure I need; and besides, these things cost a lot, because consultants are
expensive. I am sure I can do it myself if they give me the money to do it.
Local Governments: The Central Government
should do maintenance as well as the other works. We do not have sufficient money to
invest on roads, or the equipment to do it. However, when things get pretty bad, we assign
some funds to maintenance and we request the help of local people. We would like to have a
share of the large contracts, though. We do not get any help from the Central Government
to teach us how to manage the roads, or in the form of more money. We can not do anything
without money. If they give us the money, of course we are able to spend it. We do not
have any resources for maintenance, but we would like someone to rehabilitate our
roads. Also, we need to build other roads.
The local people: We need someone to fix
(rehabilitate) our roads. We have been waiting for a long time for this. Of course, we can
help with our hands to fix the roads, if the Government puts the equipment to do it. We
are very poor because we have bad roads. (This people generally do not perform almost any
maintenance activities, mostly because they have been taught and geared to do it. Much of
the deterioration could be prevented by small activities done by hand. But there are very
few examples in Latin America of important projects to increase local participation. We
need many roads and bridges. Our people die because we can not get them out to the
hospital on time. Schoolteachers do not come to our village, because of bad roads.
The large contractors: What we want are
large projects, with relatively high volumes of earth movement. We are not interested in
maintenance projects, because they require a lot of administration and margins are small.
We want capital intensive projects. We know that the people from the Ministry agree with
us. We have to lobby for this
The small contractors: What we want is a
lot of small projects, so that we can manage them, and gain experience. Then we will grow
to be able to bid for larger contracts. I am organized, and I can get a lot of people to
do maintenance. However, I can not buy equipment because the contracts are short and I am
not sure if I am going to get more work to be able to pay for the equipment. I know that
it is a hassle to have to go to the Capital to get paid, but there is no other way. I
would like to receive more training, but there are no training programs, that I know. I do
not speak any English, so I can not read all the good stuff other people write about small
contracts, local participation and other issues. I wish the program continued to have more
work.
The consultants: Maintenance is good. We
need good roads. We work mainly in design, supervision and in some feasibility studies. We
do just what we are told to do. If the Government wants to justify a large investment, we
have to support that idea. We do not have to pressure for more funds to maintenance. This
is other peoples job. If there is a contract to do maintenance studies, we are interested.
The importers of vehicle spare parts: I
do not know much about the Government or the process of road maintenance, but I want to
sell spare parts. I sell more when roads are in bad condition. However, we are producing
better vehicles that require less maintenance. They are more expensive to buy, though.
The tire companies: We know that if roads
are in bad condition, tires wear more rapidly. We produce tires for a market; we do not
manage the maintenance budgets. Personally, we would like better roads. On the other hand,
we are producing better tires. Right now there are (radial) tires that can handle
pressures as low as 29 psi. Operating at this pressure, tires produce less road
deterioration with increasing tire wear or any other vehicle operating costs. Many
truckers in the USA and Canada are using them. We have produced sufficient amounts of
literature indicating these developments, and we even produced a computer software to
demonstrate the product and the economics behind using lower tire pressures, but we do not
know why they are not used in developing countries.
The politicians in general: We want
increased budgets. We want money spent on maintenance. We also want large projects to show
our constituents we are working for them. If the Ministry of Finance approves the budgets
for maintenance, we will approve it in Congress. They are the ones who cut the budgets.
Also the IMF cuts the budgets. We are at the mercy of international organizations. We want
to be able to advertise and show all people what we do, and we are not sure that we can do
that with maintenance projects, which are small. We want to make sure that money for
rehabilitating the roads in my constituency are included in the budget. We understand that
maintenance is important, but the Government is the one preparing the budgets.
In summary, the object of this paper is to
increase awareness toward the importance of maintenance expenditure (investment), by
making the stakeholders involved more responsible and transparent of their actions (or
omissions). These may include promoting increased maintenance budgets, financing
mechanisms, road stabilization, reduced road deterioration through managerial actions,
local involvement and participation, and so forth. Let us hope that we all get more
serious about maintenance.
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