admin
Freeman Razemba
Senior Reporter
Rehabilitation of the Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge Highway has gone a gear up, with nearly 421km of the road now opened to traffic, as construction of a 16-kilometre stretch of four lanes in Ngundu, one of the areas that needs special attention, starts.
The portion of the highway stretching from just before Ngundu Business Centre to Runde River Bridge has the most difficult terrain to navigate, being mountainous with curves, with at least three rivers crossing the road.
The numerous curves on the road have necessitated the construction of four lanes to ease movement of traffic, and avoid accidents.
On some portions of the area, there is little space for road expansion, as the existing one is narrowly sandwiched between a mountain and a river.
To overcome such hurdles, Bitumen World, the contractor working on the portion, last month temporarily closed the road for almost an hour to allow for blasting part of the mountain to open the way for widening and reconstruction works.
This comes after the more than 421km, about 70 percent of the 580km stretch, has now been completed and opened to traffic, with contractors working ahead of schedule on one of the largest infrastructure developments since the advent of the Second Republic.
While there are many infrastructure development projects across the country, the rehabilitation of the Harare-Beitbridge highway and modernisation of the Beitbridge Border Post to bring in efficient systems aimed at reducing or eliminating delays, are the two signature projects of President Mnangagwa’s administration.
The Beitbridge Border Post has already been commissioned by the President and users of the busiest land border in the SADC region commended the speed with which they were being cleared, and the ease of clearance over the festive period.
Posting on its Twitter handle yesterday, the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development said: “16km of Ngundu area on Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge Road will have four lanes and construction is in progress.”
The rehabilitation, effectively the rebuilding, of the Chirundu-Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge Highway, had been mooted for a long time as the work done in the 1960s was definitely in need of improvement to cope with traffic that was inconceivable then.
A foreign tender for the reconstruction was awarded to an Austrian firm, Geiger International, with a ground-breaking ceremony held in May 2017, under the First Republic, to mark the beginning of works at the cost of US$2,7 billion.
However, nothing happened on the ground.
So, among the early moves of the Second Republic was to cancel the foreign tender in 2018 and then engage local companies to rehabilitate the highway with the Government engineers being the quality controllers.
Five local companies were contracted to undertake the work: Tensor Systems, Masimba Holdings, Fossil Contracting, Exodus & Company, and Bitumen World.
The scope of the project involves dualisation, upgrading and tolling of the highway.
The entire north-south corridor has been divided into three sections: the 580km Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge highway together with eight toll plazas, the 342km Harare-Chirundu highway with six toll plazas, and the 59km Harare Ring Road with three toll plazas.
These tolls are what pay for the rehabilitation and maintenance of the road.
Meanwhile, construction and surfacing is also in progress on Castle Magamba Road in Rusape, while surfacing is in progress on the Harare-Kanyemba Road in Mbire District, Mashonaland Central province.
Government came up with the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme 2 (ERRP2) not only to focus on major highways, but also those roads in suburbs of towns and cities that have been abandoned by opposition-run councils over the years, leaving motorists to navigate potholes and increasing the cost of owning and operating vehicles.
Over 2 000km of roads have been re-gravelled, while 6 627,9km have been graded, with 701 drainage structures constructed or repaired and 184 wash-aways reclaimed.
Across the country, 4 491,5km of drains have been opened while 6 141,2km of verges have been cleared.
Progress continues to be made on the patching of potholes, with 4 794,8km of road having been attended to.
President Mnangagwa recently urged people, especially in urban areas, to vote out incompetent opposition councillors and legislators and bring in those from Zanu PF who are pushed by the party to deliver for the people.
The Government led by President Mnangagwa, has been on a drive to improve infrastructure across the country.
Dams, roads, bridges, hospitals, clinics and schools have been constructed while irrigation schemes that stopped operating several years ago, have been resuscitated by President Mnangagwa’s administration.
The President has said that with more economic activities now taking place across the country, Zimbabweans are guaranteed a massive improvement in their living standards in line with Vision 2030 of an empowered and prosperous upper middle income society.
Online Reporter
dyton mupawaenda