Chronicle Editor
Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
GOVERNMENT has this year allocated $44 million to Beitbridge Rural District Council (BBRDC) to boost its capacity to service and rehabilitate major roads under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP).
So far, the local authority has managed to grade roads covering 82km in Beitbridge East constituency.
The council’s head of engineering and technical services, Engineer Latani Singo said so far, they had received $4,4 million which is 10 percent of their annual allocation.
“With the money received so far, we were able to regrade the Tshamnanga to Tongwe road (23km), Dumba-Tshapongwe to Dite road (25km), No52 to Tshabili road (10km), and Chief Matibe to Madaula road (6km).
“We have also tendered for the rehabilitation of the 25km Sentinel road (under Beitbridge West). The process is now at an evaluation stage and we will only be able to cover 11km with the currently available funds,” said Eng Singo.
He said they were looking at fixing most of the roads as soon as they get the next disbursement.
The engineer said most dust roads were in a fairly good condition except for the Sentinel and Nuli roads.
In some instances, the poor state of major roads has been pushing the cost of transport in rural Beitbridge following the pulling out of some routes by public transporters.
The few private players that remain charge relatively higher prices. For instance, it costs between R200 and R250 from Beitbridge when one uses private transport, for a journey of between 100km and 130km.
Those travelling to Harare or Bulawayo which are 600km and 327km away, pay between US$20 (about R300) and US$25 (about R350) when using public transport.
Under ERRP2, the Government is targeting to rehabilitate 10 000km of roads countrywide.
At the same time, the District Development Fund (DDF) has intensified the rehabilitation of damaged roads in Matabeleland South province’s seven districts after getting $40 million from Treasury last year. — @tupeyo
Online Reporter