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Lynn Munjanja recently in Karoi
Wearing a white-and-brown African attire, matching headgear and jewellery, 61-year-old Martha Rodzi, a mother of six and grandmother of 15, from Bururuka Village in Hurungwe sits under a huge tree with fellow villagers.
Together they observe men and women and the heavy machinery working on tarring the 334 km Binga-Karoi Highway.
Their generation had learnt to live with this dirty road with its wafts of dust each time a car passes, leaving their home utensils caked with a red soil hue. They have grown to see buses and lorries destroy the main road and leave suspension cracking ribs and smaller cars avoiding the ribs and opting for side tracks.
And, surely, the villagers never dreamt of this road being tarred, for, generation after generation in the village is witnessing the tarring of the road for the first time. Today, in beer drinking binges, in crop fields, among herdboys, at boreholes and little everywhere else, the tarring of the road is on every lip.
They await the commissioning of the new passage with hope it will change their lives.
To them, it is more than just another piece of infrastructure, it is a symbol of relief. “As a farmer, I was facing challenges in transporting my maize and sunflower to the growth point at Magunje for selling as we would use carts but now it is easier because we now use cars to transport our maize to the Grain Marketing Board,” she said.
Another villager from Chivakanenyama, Noti Kachamabundu is optimistic the development will reduce transport costs.
“This new tarred road has made us happy because it’s a huge development in our area as we were being overcharged especially from Zvipane to Magunje which was eight dollars and many people could not afford it and resorted to walk because after all it was not a long distance. As a tobacco farmer, I was facing challenges on transporting my tobacco to Harare because it would cost me US$12 and that was very unfair and unreasonable.
“Now even the President’s inputs can easily reach to us now because of the development of this road hence I am very happy and relieved,” he said.
Implementers of the project, DDF said a project of this magnitude takes time and people in the area have to be patient.
The Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet in charge of DDF and related infrastructure, Mr James Jonga said;
“This road is a 350km road from Magunje to Binga and it covers a number of national parks.
“The efforts of Government have resulted in stage by stage development of the dust road by putting tar on it.
“It has to be a gradual process and the gradual process was brought about by the austerity measures which were engineered by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development Mthuli Ncube and fortunately they have brought prosperity as evidenced by the ministry of finance tax collections,” he said.
DDF is a Government department under the office of the President tasked with the development and maintenance of infrastructure, water supplies, road services, hire of plant and equipment, and tillage services. The District Development Fund is upgrading the Karoi-Binga Road, which is expected to improve livelihoods of the people in Hurungwe, Zvipane and Binga, and promote tourism and business operations.
The project is being financed by proceeds from the 2 percent intermediated money transfer tax.
The project, will reduce the distance between Harare and Victoria Falls by more than 200 kilometres.
Online Reporter