$1,7 million road survey launched

Pamela Shumba Senior Reporter
THE government has launched a $1,7 million national road condition and inventory survey to determine the state of roads in the country. Speaking at the official launch in Bulawayo yesterday, Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Joram Gumbo said the project will be funded by the Zimbabwe National Road Authority (Zinara).

He said the survey will help the government establish an information system that secures an optimal management, maintenance and development of the national road network.

“This is a project that will usher a new era in the way we undertake our road network management processes. It’s a universally accepted norm that planning is an essential pre-requisite in undertaking development initiatives. However, it’s not possible to adequately plan without appropriate information.

“There’s need for benchmarks that determine the strategic direction that needs to be taken to achieve a particular objective,” said Gumbo. He said while the country had serious backlogs in the rehabilitation of roads, it was difficult to verify the extent of the problem due to lack of information.

He said it was important for engineers to appreciate that the conditions of roads change constantly due to climate change, traffic and lack of maintenance.

“It’s therefore imperative to establish the condition of roads. This should be undertaken at regular intervals to ensure that information is always up to date. I’m impressed by the role being played by Zinara and Zilga in facilitating such processes, which enhance the capacities of road authorities to effectively execute their mandate in their areas of jurisdiction. It’s also important for road authorities to invest in their own capacity development,” said Gumbo.

The database, the minister added, which will be housed in his ministry, will be fully geographical information system (GIS) compliant. This means that there will be visual depiction of the data collected, which facilitates ease of reference and prioritisation. Zinara acting chief executive officer Moses Juma said the country last had a national roads condition survey in 1999.

He said the survey is the first in Africa to be funded internally as such projects are usually funded by the World Bank. “We’ve prescribed the wrong solutions to what we thought could be the problem. Without the survey, it’s almost impossible to meaningfully make an impact on our roads,” said Juma.

He said Zimbabwe has almost 95,000km of roads made up of 20 percent surfaced roads while 10 percent fall under the purview of urban councils and 70 percent fall under the jurisdiction of the District Development Fund and Rural District Councils.

Bulawayo Provincial Affairs Minister Nomthandazo Eunice Moyo and the Rural Development, Promotion and Preservation of Culture and Heritage Minister Abednico Ncube attended the launch.