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The SADC Summit next month goes beyond the opportunity to show Zimbabwe’s full return to normalcy and functionality under the Second Republic, but also offers a major opportunity for both the Government and the private sector to show what can be done when everyone works together on infrastructure.
The need to upgrade the national road network, and especially the main north-south SADC highway between Beitbridge and Chirundu, saw the Second Republic ditching the overpriced proposals by external contractors and bringing in five competent and experienced Zimbabwean contractors to do the long-neglected work.
Shortly afterwards, President Mnangagwa, when it became obvious that despite all efforts to motivate urban authorities they were still unable to rehabilitate, rebuild or even maintain their major roads, declared the urban road system was in a state of disaster, allowing the Government to step in and have the work done. The same team of contractors was hired.
Almost all the roads that the SADC Heads of State and Government and their teams will be travelling over during the Summit, are part of these two programmes, with the only effect that the summit may have had being the rearrangement of the schedules so that what was needed in north-west Harare was done in time. And it has been.
The southern two thirds of the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare-Chirundu Highway is now basically in place and work has started on the Harare-Chirundu section, with the initial work also tying in with the urban renewal programme.
Nemakonde Way was supposed to be dual carriageway to the Westgate Circle from the early 2000s, under the new local plan put out to permit the development in the late 1990s when Harare City Council still adhered strictly to planning rules.
The council after 2000 could not be bothered, despite the rates being paid by the major new commercial and residential development in the area.
In fact, the council could not even be bothered to maintain some serious new work done in the 1990s by the then council, the northern link of Harare Drive across the top of Mount Pleasant for example, and the upgrade of Sam Nujoma Street Extension and its continuation into Solomon Mutswairo Road leading into the new northern suburbs across the Gwebi River.
But after already fixing the main southern arterial roads, the Government was able to move to catch up on the maintenance of the northern main arterial road, and Nemakonde Way happened to be the first stage of the rebuild of the Chirundu Highway, so both sections could be scheduled in.
At the same time it was obvious that the new Parliament Building required a decent road access and network, and this was a routine development. The main access was moved from Nemakonde Way, as originally planned, to Solomon Mutswairo Road to make the route from Harare city centre shorter and quicker, hence the new wide ceremonial road being made in the correct place.
This also has security advantages for ceremonial activity since it is anchored at the east end by the Zimbabwe Defence Forces University.
We need to show off the road network in and around the Mount Hampden area, as it does show that Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean contractors acting on Government tenders can do quality work, do the work properly to the highest standards, and do it in the set times and to budget. The work required was not just road rehabilitation and road rebuilding, but new roadworks and new bridges.
While there is plenty of work for contractors to do in Zimbabwe, if anyone next door wants to hire a decent contractor, Zimbabwean companies are available and they are cheaper than what others in the region were charging.
The other major development at Mount Hampden pushed by President Mnangagwa for the Summit is the complex of villas that is now almost finished.
This complex is again something in the plans, the upper-end core, the suites section, of the planned five-star hotel that has to be built in the area and is justified on commercial grounds.
Because of the nearby busy light-aircraft airport, Mount Hampden will never be able to host skyscrapers, so the hotel will have to spread out a bit, in more of a garden setting than the towers of other luxury hotels in downtown Harare.
In fact, Mount Hampden looks like developing as more of a garden city than we see in other areas, making it probably the most attractive centre in Zimbabwe.
Again, with everything being designed from scratch in the area, it is easy for the required security arrangements needed for a Parliament and for exceptionally important visitors to be put in place from the beginning, and be part of the landscape, rather than be obtrusive and blocking normal business activity.
It all fits together as part of the sort of innovation and efficiency that President Mnangagwa has been demanding of the Second Republic.
The summit has already been noted as being an important part of regional recognition of the reforms and instance on good government that President Mnangagwa and the Second Republic have brought to the country.
That is why the rest of SADC agreed Zimbabwe should host the summit and our President be its next chairperson.
But it is also an opportunity for us to show the region, and the media who will be flocking in, that we are a country that functions, and our development policy of bringing together Government and private sector is not just functional, but a policy that allows development to be accelerated.
Online Reporter
dyton mupawaenda