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Conrad Mupesa

Mashonaland West Bureau

The devolution funds being released to all local authorities have helped Hurungwe Rural District Council procure several road maintenance equipment, service vehicles and a borehole rig.

The development means the area, which has a number of infrastructure projects that are already benefiting communities while others are at various stages of completion, will continue to develop in line with National Development Strategy 1 and Vision 2030 of an upper middle income society.

Development of infrastructure, especially roads, is seen as a key enabler to economic growth.

Apart from prudently deploying devolution funds, Hurungwe RDC is getting support from private players in the development of the district.

Road repairs are in progress across the district in anticipation of increased human traffic as economic conditions in the country, and consequently the district, are improving.

With the district having about 30 percent of Zimbabwe’s total tobacco hectarage, Hurungwe RDC is rehabilitating the road network to ensure farmers take their crop to the market.

The 2023 tobacco selling season opened on March 8 and movement of tobacco to auction and contract floors is in full swing.

A transporter of tobacco and various grains, Mr Cliff Chabikwa, told The Herald recently that road upgrades by Hurungwe RDC had improved the state of the roads in the area.

“We can now drive to the furthest parts of the district to ferry tobacco to Karoi Auction Floors. Some of these roads were impassable due to incessant rains,” he said.

A Kajekache businesswoman, Ms Chipo Mugurasave, said the improved road network was making it easy for her to transport wares from Magunje and Karoi.

Hurungwe RDC chief executive officer, Mr Luke Kalavina, said lack of equipment before the Covid-19 era had paralysed council’s ability to rehabilitate roads in the district.

“We were suffering a lot because of lack of equipment prior to 2020. As a council, we prioritised acquiring this equipment from the funds we are getting from the Treasury under devolution,” said Mr Kalavina.

“In 2022, we managed to procure two graders using devolution funds.

“We also managed to procure a third grader late last year using internal funds and those that were released from our partner Kariba REDD (Carbon Green Africa).”

Carbon Green Africa is partnering Hurungwe RDC in environmental conservancy and climate change issues.

Mr Kalavina said the district was now well equipped in terms of road maintenance.

He added that they have also acquired a dozer to help in the opening up of new roads, as they seek to improve the entire road network in the entire area.

Despite winning the praise of many people in the district over their work ethic, there have been reports that the council is saddled with a huge salary backlog.

However, Mr Kalavina said they had cleared the arrears and are now one month behind.

“Our salaries to our employees have to be proportionate to the service delivery. There are times that we are able to buy equipment to use as part of service delivery but also starving the other expenses we incur daily.

“As council we operate different accounts with dedicated funds that we use as prescribed by statutory regulations,” he said.