Zimpapers Logo

The North-South Corridor road rehabilitation project along Harare-Chirundu Highway is a revolutionary undertaking set to provide seamless linkage of the country to Sadc, Comesa and East African states.

It amplifies Government’s proactive and strategic grasp of Africa’s development trajectory of enhanced regional and inter-regional trade through an Africa-wide free trade zone.

The project also reduces the number of accidents experienced on a single stretch of road along the gateway for north and south bound traffic.

President Mnangagwa on Monday officially launched the commencement of works on the first 6,5km.

Through a US$21 million grant aid from Japan, the project covers the first 6,5km of a 21km stretch where lives have been lost, property destroyed and unquantifiable losses due to delays as a result of the treacherously sloppy and curve-ridden road.

President Mnangagwa is in Japan for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, where he said his Government will seek to expand Japanese involvement to cover the remaining 14,5km.

Japan, on the other hand, has hailed Zimbabwe’s trajectory saying it was coming on the back of reforms that are being undertaken.

Ambassador Toshiyuki Iwado said Japan was prepared to help tame the country’s treacherous road deriving from their experience in the mountainous country.

Chirundu Border Post currently handles more than 300 trucks daily and thousands more private vehicles.

The road is being widened to 70 metres (35 metres on each side) with a 2,5-metre shoulder width and overtaking lanes to unclog the road which often sees trucks ascend at snail’s pace.

While officiating at the ground-breaking ceremony, President Mnangagwa noted that there was need for commensurate planning on the part of immigration and customs authorities.

And rightly so, as the President foresaw a challenge of unclogging one section of the road only to overwhelm the border due to efficient traffic flow.

Border authorities must be able to deal with increased traffic once the project is complete.

The corridor starts as a descend into the Zambezi Escarpment where drivers experience steep descends, punctuated by curves that have seen one-too many haulage trucks and smaller vehicles hurtling out of control into carved rocks and an adjacent valley.

There is increased frequency of road signs as one approaches Marongora along the Harare-Chirundu Highway, warning drivers to exercise extra caution, the move from curve ahead to double curve ahead, gravitating towards an ominous “Engage Low Gear”.

At the end of the specular, yet treacherous drive, is an area ironically called Hell’s Gate, presumably coined for being the starting point of a treacherous and torturous 6,5kms when coming from Chirundu Border Post.

The name Hell’s Gate is symbolic when one considers the torturous road to Vision 2030. Low gears are engaged as a result of austerity for prosperity measures outlined in the Transitional Stabilisation Programme.

In a budget he dubbed “austerity for prosperity” in November last year, Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube cut the wages for the President, ministers and senior officials by 5 percent, adding that Government would further reduce the size of its foreign embassies.

Minister Ncube laid the groundwork for tougher measures to come as witnessed by the current rise in the price of fuel and electricity load shedding.

However, like the treacherous road to Sadc, Comesa and East African markets, Zimbabweans will have to navigate and make it through Hell’s Gate to an upper-middle income economy by 2030.

Only when Zimbabweans work together, can the national vision be realised.

Government’s foreign policy strategy of re-engagement is already yielding positive results as evidenced in not only Japan, but a number of other nations’ support for Zimbabwe’s development agenda.

We urge the nation to rally behind President Mnangagwa and his Government as they build a better Zimbabwe.

With President Mnangagwa on the wheel, the nation is in safe hands.

The road is rough, but the journey is worth it.