TRAFFIC LIGHTS CRISIS: COUNCIL WORKING ON ADDRESSING ISSUE

Talent Gore

HARARE City Council is working on addressing the traffic lights crisis in the Central Business District.

Speaking at a special council meeting on Friday, Town Clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango said the city has started making payments towards buying controllers for traffic lights and street lights.

“Work on our robots in our city will continue to take place. We went to tender on the issue of street lights and that one the Government will be funding.

“We went to tender and we have got some figures and they (central Government) said cut down the figures to about US$5 million, so we re-scoped the work.

“It has since been submitted to the Deputy Chief Secretary, Engineer (Amos) Marawa, who is running the project.”

City of Harare acting head of mechanical and electrical engineering, Engineer Calvin Chigariro, said for the traffic lights project, in particular, the city was initially targeting 187 kilometres.

“But, then we were asked to downsize, we will do about 500 street lights,” he said.

“Roads that we are going to cover include roads leading to and around hotels where the Heads of State (for the SADC meeting) are going to be staying.

“We are working on roads such as Jason Moyo Avenue, which is a link between Rainbow Towers and Meikles Hotel (Hyatt Regency),  and Joina City among other facilities in the city.

“We are also going to do Julius Nyerere for access to Monomotapa Hotel.

“We are also working on Nelson Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah where we have Ambassador Hotel, then we have Cresta Oasis along Nelson Mandela.”

Eng Chigariro added: “We have already commissioned Simon Muzenda Street and Samora Machel.

“We have finished Robert Mugabe and Kaguvi.  We have finished Simon Muzenda Street and Nelson Mandela but those ones are not yet running.

“We should be able to meet our targets on traffic lights.”

Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume said he is extremely worried about traffic lights.

“We can’t have a city without functioning traffic lights in this modern day and age. It is just an embarrassment.”

Meanwhile, the city has already completed the interim septic tank in Mt Hampden.

“Then we do a bio-digester which will then take care of other developments that will come even after the summit,” said Eng Chisango.

“We are in the process of installing the water reticulation for the villas that are being constructed there.

“We have trenched and will be providing the pipes for that.”

Eng Chisango said the Government had indicated it will provide funding to the City of Harare for the works.

“They said we can use our funds in the meantime and they will reimburse,” he said.

“So for the purpose of the deadline, we will proceed to use some of the resources that we have and then ask the Government to reimburse.”