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Freeman Razemba

Senior Reporter

Motorists and residents have applauded the Government for rehabilitating part of the Chitungwiza Road under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP2) which has been in a bad state, as more roads in the town are also set to be reconstructed.

The road, which is about 6,6km long is being reconstructed by a local company, Syvern Contracting, and it is between Manyame River Bridge up to the intersection of Tilcor Road and Chitungwiza Road in the industrial areas.

Chitungwiza Road links to the US$88 million Mbudzi interchange, High Glen Road to Bulawayo Road and Machipisa.

Yesterday, Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Felix Mhona and Government officials toured the road, whose rehabilitation started two weeks ago.

A motorist, Mr Edgar Shamhu said: “This road was in a poor condition and we had now resorted to using other roads like going through the city to travel to Machipisa.”

Another motorist said the rehabilitation of the portion of the road will make travelling easier.

A Chitungwiza resident, Mr Shame Chikomo, said it was their hope that the contractor will soon complete the road.

“We are really happy with the rehabilitation of Chitungwiza Road,” he said.

“The road had really become unsafe. We are also happy with the professionalism that the contractors are doing. We are hopeful that the road will be properly rehabilitated. We are even happier because this shows a clear map of the President’s Vision 2030.”

Mr Tadiwa Chikoko of St Mary’s in Chitungwiza said: “It comes as a surprise to us that the road is now being rehabilitated because the state of the road made it seem as if it was no longer possible to be rehabilitated.

“We are grateful to the Government for this initiative.

“We hope that once it’s complete they can put humps on the road to avoid accidents because the road is frequently used by learners who will be going to  school.”

In an interview during the tour, Minister Mhona said he was happy with the progress and that the contractor will soon move in to reconstruct another road, Mharapara Road, which links Makoni Shopping Centre.

The road stretches for about 7km.

“I am humbled, Why? Because when we talk of a listening President we can actually see the demonstration that His Excellency Cde Dr Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa does listen,” said Minister Mhona.

“People were talking about this road, Chitungwiza Road, for years and it was neglected and you could see mushrooming of potholes and every day through the social media was inundated with messages to say when are you going to descend on this particular stretch?

“And I am happy to say as we were sharing together with His Excellency, he then said I want you to demonstrate that the Second Republic is here to deliver and we are here, we are no longer working from our offices. “And I am here that this road is also very important as it is going to connect to the interchange, Mbudzi interchange, that we talk about and we have got an industrial section just around and it would take us to Makoni then Hwedza Section.”

Minister Mhona said ERRP was enunciated in 2021 through President Mnangagwa who had said that the roads were in a sorry state and that there was need to move with speed to reconstruct and rehabilitate them.

“But alas we have got issues to do with competing factors when it comes to Treasury where we also have to manage from the same pot,” he said.

“We need to rehabilitate our roads and at the same time we also need to eat as a country, we also need to procure other very important items and we are saying as a nation the pace at which we are moving as the Second Republic is amazing.

“Because if you see at this particular road, we just started some week ago but we have already done 2,5km and it’s going to come to about 6,7km and I have instructed my director to continue with the road so that we rehabilitate the remaining 7km that will take us to Makoni Section.

“And I am the people of Chitungwiza were saying the only stumbling block is when you have local authorities verses central Government not working in tandem. You have such problems that would emanate because these roads are supposed to be rehabilitated by local authorities but nothing has been happening for the past 20 years.

“And we are saying now with the advent of the Second Republic, we just need to maintain our roads. Not necessarily looking at a particular stretch of road, to say this belongs to the local authority, or rural district council, but we are just going to superintend all the roads.”

Minister Mhona said he was aware that more roads in Chitungwiza were in a poor state and he had since instructed his team to continue and move with speed so that they start scoping the roads.

“You will see as we move towards June, July where we have accelerated and this has nothing to do with the harmonised elections coming. We are saying this is the mandate that we have as a ministry to make sure that we rehabilitate our roads,” he said.

Chitungwiza Road is also seen as one of the roads connecting through the Mbudzi interchange to divert through traffic around Harare, instead of expecting heavy truck traffic to go through the city centre.

Syvern Contracting Company project manager Engineer Munyaradzi Meki said: “This is Chitungwiza Road rehabilitation project where we are starting from Mharapara junction up to Manyame Bridge which is 6,6km.

“So out of the 6,6km, we have got 1,6km that is fairly good that we are patching potholes and we are going to do frog spray. Then the rest of the 5km from Tilcor Road up to Manyame Bridge, where we are doing rehabilitation.”

Minister Mhona said the road was in a bad state and they were around 30 percent in terms of the programme and they were likely going to finish by the end of next month.

More than 50 000km of roads have been rehabilitated and reconstructed while 2 000 structures have been attended to since the start of the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP2) in 2021 under a sustained road and infrastructure development drive by the Second Republic.

Zimbabwe has an estimated road network of 84 000km, out of which 93 percent of the network was in fair or poor condition and in need of rehabilitation or periodic maintenance.

President Mnangagwa launched the US$400 million ERRP2 project, a countrywide initiative meant to improve the country’s road network that had been damaged following heavy rains brought by Cyclone Idai in 2019.

More damage to roads was done by subsequent rains and the Government has been working to make the roads easily usable.

Ongoing road projects include pothole patching, grading, re-gravelling, spot dumping, wash away repairs, culverts construction, reseals and rehabilitation.

ERRP2 has created several jobs as hundreds of people have been employed to work on the different projects.