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part of 80 such equipment worth US$16 million imported from China and the remainder is expected in the country in September.

The graders were immediately allocated to various provinces by Local Government, Rural and Urban Development Minister Ignatius Chombo.

Commissioning the graders, President Mugabe said the recapitalisation programme had come against a decade-long road maintenance backlog that led to the deterioration of the national roads network, hampering economic development.

“Following our land reform programme in 2000, which saw the historically disadvantaged indigenous Zimbabweans resettled on productive and arable land, our country was put under illegal sanctions by the West.

“As history will record, this led to untold suffering of our people, deterioration of service provision in health, water, and sanitation and, of course road development.

“Road authorities such as the District Development Fund, Rural District Councils, the Department of Roads and Urban Councils were effectively unable to fulfil their mandates due to the shortage of funding,” President Mugabe said.

The country’s national road network is 90 000 kilometres in total, 70 percent of which comprises gravel roads.

“The majority of our people, including the newly-resettled farmers, rely on these gravel roads for connectivity to markets, health centres, educational institutions and other service centres. Sadly, these roads were worst affected, rendering some of them impassable, thus leaving some areas virtually isolated. Such has been the cruel effect of the illegal sanctions on our people and country,” he said.

President Mugabe said the poor state of roads was worsened by Treasury.

“The situation was exacerbated by the fact that, throughout the life of the inclusive Government, Treasury dismally failed to accord road maintenance due attention, while donor funds seem to have clearly been diverted towards party politics rather than national developmental activities. I make specific reference here to the politics pursuant to the regime change agenda, unabatedly pursued by our detractors,” he said.

President Mugabe said determined to overcome the hurdles, Government in 2002 took a policy decision to institutionalise a road fund, giving birth to Zinara.

“Today we experience the fruits of the paradigm shift from the first generation funding which had funds from the fiscus through the Public Sector Investment Programme, to the second generation funding, which applies the “user pays” principle, a Road Authorities Recapitalisation Programme that is fully funded by Zinara,” he said.

Before the establishment of the programme, a huge proportion of money that Zinara was disbursing to road authorities was spent on hiring equipment from private players who were charging exorbitant prices.

“In addition, road authorities experienced challenges of acquitting these disbursements for one reason or another, thereby delaying the road maintenance programme.

“I therefore want to complement the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Infrastructure Development for instituting the innovative Road Authorities Recapitalisation Programme.

“Instead of disbursing all the funds to road authorities, we are now capacitating them with road construction equipment. To this end, I am pleased to note that at the end of the roll-out of this Road Capitalisation Programme, each road authority will be equipped, at the minimum, with road maintenance equipment comprising a motorised grader, a front end loader, two tippers, a roller and dumper,” President Mugabe said.

He applauded Zinara for coming up with a home grown solution to externally induced challenges faced by road authorities.

The Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces urged other sectors of the economy, especially those in the public sector, to be innovative and contribute towards the revival of the economy despite challenges brought by sanctions.

President Mugabe acknowledged the work being done on the 820 kilometre Plumtree-Bulawayo-Harare-Mutare highway which he said was on schedule. He also noted the construction of the state-of-the-art toll plazas and computerisation of vehicle licensing which has improved revenue collection.

He urged beneficiaries of the graders to use the equipment carefully and ensure that it received regular maintenance.

Transport, Communications and Infrastructure Development Minister Nicholas Goche, said the graders were the single largest investment in road construction since independence. Local Government, Urban and Rural Development Minister Chombo, said the importation of the road construction equipment would ensure an efficient public transport system and transportation of agricultural produce.