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From George Maponga in Masvingo
The upgrading of key roads across the province is ongoing despite funding constraints.
Several road projects are at various stages in most districts, with shortages of foreign currency and the centralisation of procurement of key raw materials cited as major drawbacks.

Government had initially budgeted $75 million for the projects, with major roads in the province set to be upgraded and tarred to ensure faster movement of traffic and cargo.

The Mhandamabwe-Chibi-Tokwe Road project is the flagship of all the road works currently underway.
Work on the upgrading and rehabilitation of key roads will facilitate faster movement of goods and people from Chivi District to the south of the province.

Masvingo deputy provincial road Engineer Arnold Jeme said the Mhandamabwe-Chibi Road and the Gutu-Kurai Road projects had been awarded to private contractors.

Engineer Jeme said despite work stoppage on the Mhandamabwe Road recently, the project was now on track with the contractor on site.

“Work had stopped at the Mhandamabwe-Chibi Road project after we had resurfaced 28,5km, but I am happy that the contractor is now back and we can use available funding to finish a further 6km which was being worked on,” he said.

“Our aim is to make sure that despite rains, we finish the outstanding 6km so that we remove all the vehicles from the detour considering that the soils in Chivi are clay and would present challenges.”

Eng Jeme said they expected more funding for the project next year after the Government budgeted additional funds.
The road project, which is being upgraded by Bitumen Construction, has brought smiles to Chivi through employment creation for young people who were hired as contract workers.

He said progress on the Gutu-Kurai Road was not very encouraging, with very little work having been done on the ground.
“The contractor was supposed to finish surfacing 10km on the road within 172 days and right now only 20 days are left with very little on the ground being done.

“We have written to the contractor asking for a revised programme of works where we expect justification why the project is behind schedule and what can be done in the remaining 20 days and why the contract should be extended,” Eng Jeme said.

Progress has been made on upgrading Rutenga-Zvishavane Road, but challenges in the procurement of quarry stones had been a drawback.

The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development was implementing the Rutenga-Zvishavane Road project using in-house personnel and equipment.

“We had started works on the 9km stretch of the road and we had also imported the required bitumen, but works were delayed owing to procurement bottlenecks.

“We failed to procure locally-available resources, especially quarry stones because of the centralisation of procurement so there has not been much movement on that project,” Eng Jeme explained.

According to the roads official, the shortage of quarry stones had also delayed the surfacing of a 7km stretch along Masvingo-Zimuto Road.

The project was also being done in-house.
Eng Jeme expressed optimism that the situation would improve after Government released additional funding in the new financial year.

“At some of the projects, we will also look at the weather outlook to see if we will be able to continue with works or not, considering that we are now in the rainy season,” Eng Jeme said.

He said the shortage of equipment had forced them to revise down their initial target to upgrade 5km of the Gutu-Buhera Road.
He said the in-house road project was being hampered by the shortage of local materials such as quarry stones together with equipment which had since been deployed to other road projects across the province.

The road development initiative is aimed at stimulating socio-economic development in line with President Mnangagwa’s vision to transform Zimbabwe into an upper middle income economy by 2030.

The Government identified the transport sector as one of the key enablers of ongoing efforts to jump-start the economy and grow the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as envisioned under Vision 2030.