Thanks for clearing the air on this matter Josafat. I fully agree that our local people need to take ownership of such developments as they are the immediate beneficiaries. That is exactly the kind of mentality that we need to instil in our Provincial Governments and rural communities. However, our people should only take ownership of something that is 'complete' and properly done, but not 'partially done', especially when we are talking about a multi-million road improvement project. In this case, our people should rightly take ownership of the roads they have access to, but only if their roads are fully maintained and completed properly.

Hence, if the intention of the current multi-million dollar road improvement project is to use local manpower only for regular maintenance of their portion of the road after it has been fully maintained and properly done, then I fully support the idea of engaging local manpower in this aspect of road maintenance. I just hope that the mistakes of past road improvement projects, where rural roads were not completed properly prior to the duration of such projects, will not be repeated this time round.