Zimpapers Logo

Municipal Reporter

Contracted firms set to work on detour roads so the work on the new Mbudzi Interchange Flyover replacing the roundabout require at least two weeks to bring their equipment on site after taking over the project from the Government, Harare provincial roads engineer Ernest Shenje said.

The construction of the vital interchange flyover in Harare is expected to start soon with contractors now set to start works on the detour roads for diversion of the perennial heavy streams of traffic using the grossly congested roundabout.

Detours will start with sorting out Amalinda and Gumbi roads, which in any case were on the list of roads to be fixed under the Government’s Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme 2 where central Government has moved into municipalities to repair and, where necessary, reconstruct critical areas. The two roads have been moved up to the top of the list.

“After we hand over the project to contractors we expect them to take less than two weeks to bring equipment on site. So handing over the project and them being on site will likely take that period,” he said.

A town planner, city planner Dr Percy Toriro said the Mbudzi roundabout project was very pivotal.

“It has very strategic links locally and even regionally. Locally it connects the southern and western Suburbs in Harare as well as Chitungwiza.

“It also connects to Masvingo even across the border up to South Africa. This is a critical interchange in terms of development as it will help decongest the area. At the moment it cannot cater for that,” he said. 

At Mbudzi where the Government has now grabbed the nettle, Simon Mazorodze Road is the section of the main Harare-Beitbridge national highway running through southern Harare, so it has intercity and international traffic as well as being a main feeder road from the southern suburbs and western Chitungwiza into the city centre.

The roundabout was put in as the most efficient way of coping with the traffic demands without a flyover but in recent years has been overwhelmed, especially at peak times.