dyton mupawaenda
Bulawayo Bureau
CONTRACTORS in charge of the rehabilitation of Bulawayo-Nkayi Road and the road leading to Khami Prison Complex on the outskirts of the city have deployed their teams on-site to resume work.
Government, in conjunction with the Umguza Rural District Council, has already embarked on maintenance grading works with 6km of the 12km stretch from the main prison entrance towards Bulawayo having been done.
During a visit to the site by our Bulawayo Bureau last week, they found a grader operator busy at work, widening and levelling the road.
On Bulawayo-Nkayi Road, the contractor, who had abandoned the site some months back, has started sprucing up the detour near Turk Mine to allow motorists to move smoothly while main roadworks are underway.
According to the Matabeleland North Road engineer, Eng Xolani Ncube, the scope of work on the Bulawayo-Nkayi Road will cover 14km.
“The resumption of works on the road will see the contractor covering 14km,” said Eng Ncube.
Bubi National Assembly representative, who is also the Deputy Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development, Simelisizwe Sibanda, lamented the poor state of the road, which he said was hitting travellers hard financially.
“The distance from Bulawayo to Nkayi is literally half that of Bulawayo to Harare, but the commuter fares are the same,” he said.
“Buses charge US$10 from Bulawayo to Nkayi, the same fare as that of Bulawayo to Harare and this is due to the poor state of the road. We now need less talk and more action,” said Cde Sibanda.
Bulawayo-Nkayi Road is viewed as an economic enabler and connects Bubi, Nkayi and Kwekwe districts.
Its rehabilitation is being carried out by the Department of Roads in the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development, which was allocated $27 billion in road rehabilitation funds by the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) between January and September this year.
The Rural Infrastructural Development Agency (Rida), which is also responsible for the construction of bridges, received $25 billion from Zinara.
So far, only a stretch of about 50km has been widened and tarred over the years with the remainder of the road linking Turk Mine and Inyathi area in Bubi District up to Nkayi Centre yet to be worked on.
Under the Second Republic led by President Mnangagwa, the Government is scaling up the rehabilitation of major roads across the country and Nkayi Road is one of them.
The Government has said the upgrading of the Bulawayo-Nkayi Road is a top priority as it responds to stakeholder concerns that the project has taken too long to complete after it was started in 1993 with an initial completion date set for 1999.
Plans are underway to transform the Kwekwe-Nkayi-Lupane Road into a major highway that will bolster trade and commerce with a positive impact on tourism and social communication.
The feeder road is already part of the Government’s Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme whose transformation is expected to contribute towards the establishment of world-class road infrastructure in line with the country’s vision of attaining an upper middle-income economy status by 2030.
Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution in Matabeleland North Richard Moyo, said the Bulawayo-Nkayi, Bulawayo-Tsholotsho and the Khami Prisons Complex roads were the province’s three top priority roads.
Work on the Khami Prison Complex Road began on Monday last week and is expected to be done by Wednesday this week.
The rehabilitation of the road follows the intervention of Minister Moyo who visited the prison complex late last month.
Upon a request by the acting Officer Commanding Bulawayo Prisons, Assistant Commissioner Priscilla Mthembu for the minister to intervene on the bad state of the road, which she said had a negative impact on some of the complex’s projects, Minister Moyo immediately assured Asst Comm Mthembu and other senior prison commanders and Government officials present on the day that the road would be a priority under the Emergency Roads Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP2).
Despite being used mainly by Khami Prison Complex staff and the community, the road is also used to transport inmates going to or coming from the courts, and its state used to lead to the constant breakdown of the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services vehicles.
“We are assisting the local authority, Umguza RDC in the maintenance grading of the road following a request by prison commanders for the Government to intervene and rehabilitate the road,” said Eng Xolani Ncube.
Online Reporter