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Samantha Chigogo Herald Correspondent
The Harare City Council has embarked on a $9,3 million road rehabilitation and pothole patching programme ahead of the rainy season.

The project is a joint venture between Harare City Council and Zimbabwe National Road Administration.

In an interview yesterday, Harare City principal communications officer, Mr Michael Chideme, said money for the project was available.

“We have acquired funds to begin this massive road rehabilitation programme and we have deployed several teams for road resurfacing and pothole patching in council’s three zones, mainly the Central Business District (CBD), low and high density suburbs,” he said.

Mr Chideme said Zinara provided $4,5 million towards pothole patching, while $500 000 for storm drain clearance and $3 million for roads resurfacing would be sourced by the city.

A budget of $1,3 million was set aside for routine maintenance of city roads.

He said road works were already underway with repair teams working on the resealing of High Glen and Arcturus roads.

“Our teams have already started with the resealing of High Glen and Cripps roads and others will follow suit after the completion of these roads,” said Mr Chideme.

“We are also working on the reconstruction of Arcturus Road and 12th Street in Westlea and with our set targets, we hope to complete these roads soon.”

“Storm drain and ‘catch-pits’ clearance are aimed for completion next week,” he said.

“We have revamped our crusher station, which produces road manufacturing materials as it is the back bone to road maintenance and we are certain that the system we have upgraded will make our tasks easier.”

He said the city was also making stockpiles for road rehabilitation.

“We have begun a stock piling exercise of bitumen binders (tar), before the closing of industries and factories in South Africa.

“We are trying to avoid a situation where we will be caught off guard without enough material to administer our road repairs,” said Mr Chideme.

Some of the residential areas targeted for road rehabilitation include Westlea, Mandara, Highlands, Budiriro, Glenview, Glen Norah, Highfield and Hatfield.

Last week, council workers were in the CBD and some residential areas cleaning the drainage systems, putting more bins and clearing designated dump-sites to minimise rubbish that blocks storm drains.

Storm drains in Warren Park, Highfield and Kambuzuma have already been cleared.

Last year, scores of motorists were stranded after vehicles were caught up along flooded streets in the city centre.