Kwekwe road rehab stalled

A CONTRACTOR tasked to resurface roads by Kwekwe City Council has failed to start work more than a month after Minister of State for Midlands Province, Cde Owen Ncube officially launched the city’s roads rehabilitation programme.

Sources close to the developments said the Harare-based contractor, N-Frays, was demanding part payment from Kwekwe City Council for it to start working on the roads.

The sources said when Minister Ncube was invited to officiate at the launch, Kwekwe City Council had promised to pay, N-Frays part of the money for the project but the cash strapped city council was still to meet its obligation.

“Kwekwe City Council got $1 million from Zinara towards the rehabilitation of its roads network and when they engaged the contractor, they promised to make a part payment for the job but until now, the city council has not paid anything thereby stalling the work,” said the source.

The source said council was now threatening to cancel the tender over the delays.

Residents who spoke to The Herald said Kwekwe was probably the only city yet to resurface its roads with funds released by Zinara.

They accused the local authority of failing to utilise public funds on time.

“What is surprising is that if we go to other cities and towns, they have completed this project of resurfacing roads using the Zinara funds some time back. Its only here in Kwekwe where roads are yet to be resurfaced and we are left wondering what type of councillors we have here,” said Mr Trynos Gadza from Mbizo section 7.

Another resident, Mrs Melody Chiparamoto said Kwekwe city roads were in very bad state with the local authority still turning a blind eye to the situation.

“The roads are very bad but we are not seeing any activity. What is surprising is that a small and struggling town like Redcliff has since resurfaced its roads using the Zinara funds,” Mrs Chiparamoto said.

Contacted for Comment, N-Frays projects coordinator Alonzo Innocent Kwari confirmed that they were still to start the job over payment issues.

He said they have however, since completed negotiations with Kwekwe City council management and will start work before the end of this week.

“It’s true, we were yet to start work over issues to do with payments but we have since reached an agreement with the council and work will start this week.

“Everything the tar and other materials are on the ground and by tomorrow (today) we should be starting work.

“We have said as a company we should just do the work and talk of payment later so as to protect the good image of the company,” he said.