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Minister Kasukuwere

Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Harare has so far received $5,4 million from the Government under the Emergency Roads Rehabilitation Programme after its roads were declared a state of disaster in February. Council, which engaged several contractors, has completed the road patching phase which started in April this year.

It is now embarking on the second phase of the road works which entails roads reconstruction, rehabilitation, resealing, overlaying and marking.

Presenting capital and revenue estimates for 2018 and the city’s capital development plan for 2019 to 2022, Finance and Development Committee chairperson, Councillor Luckson Mukunguma said the city engaged a number of contractors to carry out road works.

“Commendable work has been done by these contractors and I report that a number of roads have been reconstructed, overlaid and resealed, among them High Glen Road in Glen Norah, Gletywin Road in Gletywin, Harare Drive in Chisipite, Rekayi Tangwena in the central business district, Saint George Road in Waterfalls, Ardbennie Road in Mbare, Willowvale Road in Willowvale, 8th Avenue, 11th Avenue and Glen View Way in Glen View, to mention a few,” he said.

In its 2018 budget, Harare allocated $12 million to roads and maintenance programmes which the city says should be carried out in a manner which is sustainable and less costly to the city.

“It, therefore, behoves the city to fully capacitate its roads maintenance teams and steer clear of hiring plant, equipment and machinery,” said Clr Mukunguma.

“Council will indeed be seized with programmes to render zones fully functional before end of 2018 and the envisaged retooling exercise as targeted in the 2017 and 2018 budget is particularly instructive.”

In February, President Mugabe officially declared a state of disaster on Harare’s roads and road infrastructure through a notice published in the Government Gazette. The road network had not had any meaningful routine maintenance over the last 15 years and the heavy rains left the road network in a bad state.

Local Government, Rural Development and National Housing Minister Saviour Kasukuwere announced the President’s declaration in the Government Gazette at the time.

Minister Kasukuwere, together with his Transport and Infrastructure Development counterpart Dr Joram Gumbo, toured the damaged roads and concluded that they were in a state of disaster.

This prompted Government intervention, with the rehabilitation of the roads starting with Seke Road, which had some stretches becoming impassable.

Government said it would assist the City of Harare to rehabilitate the capitals’ 5 000-km road network, as it became clear that the local authority alone had no capacity to do the job.