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Michael Magoronga Midlands Correspondent
Gokwe Town Council has received $32 000 from the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA) for road rehabilitation.
Gokwe town secretary Ms Mellania Mandeya confirmed receiving the fund, saying it was part of the $165 000 they applied for last year.
“We are grateful to the Government for responding to our call and we appreciate the gesture,” she said.
Ms Mandeya said the funds came a bit late as council had already used its money to reseal 1,6 kilometres of the Mafungautsi loop road and to tar a 300-metre stretch from the robots to the boom gate.
“We are simply going to replace the funds we used since we could not ignore the state that the roads were in,” she said.
Ms Mandeya said they had to step in after the private contractor that they had engaged to rehabilitate the roads abandoned the project due to non-payment because of the delays in the disbursement of money by ZINARA.
“The private contractor we had engaged abandoned the project because we could not get funds from ZINARA to pay for the work,” she said. “We ended up using ratepayers’ money for road rehabilitation.
“The road rehabilitation programme was part of our quick-wins so we could not turn a blind eye, we just had to rehabilitate them.”
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