Minister of Construction, Housing, Municipalities and Public Works, Benkin Rikani, stressed on Sunday the need to proceed with implementing the axle load and maximum dimensions system for freight trucks to preserve the country’s roads and bridges, revealing that implementing this system will increase the costs of transporting goods.
This came in a speech he delivered at the opening of a conference on the role of pivotal weighing stations in maintaining road networks in Iraq .
In his speech, Rikani said that the weighing stations caused problems for Iraq with neighboring countries, because during the previous stage, and after 2003 and the return of commercial activity, neighboring countries did not allow the entry of Iraqi trucks due to the weight of the loads .
He explained that every two or three trucks that arrive at the Iraqi border from neighboring countries are transformed into one inside the country, and this issue has become a pretext for the poor condition of some roads and the failure to rehabilitate them under the pretext of not adhering to the axial loads .
The Minister also pointed out that the people who most object to the axle load system are the government departments themselves, adding that Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani directed adherence to this system .
He continued saying that the cost of transporting goods will increase with the implementation of the system, but we must implement it to regulate the flow of roads and streets and protect them from destruction .
Rikani stressed that government departments and ministries must abide by the law. It is true that anything is difficult at the beginning, but with continuity we adapt to the new situation.
