Masvingo City embarks on $1,4m road project

MASVINGO City Council has embarked on a $1,4 million road resurfacing programme that will result in an improvement in the state of roads in the country’s oldest city.

To date, close to 1km of road has been re-sealed under the exercise.

Chief engineer Mr Tawanda Gozo on Tuesday said the local authority was going to resurface Josiah Moyo Street at Masvingo Provincial Magistrates Court, with the first phase of grading having already been completed.

He said the programme would soon expand to cover all the city’s 10 wards.

“We have started tarring Jason Moyo Street at a cost of $156 000. The first phase of reconstruction has been done and in two weeks’ time, we will be done with the actual tarring of the 850 metres-long street,” said Eng Gozo.

He said plans were underway to identify a contractor to rehabilitate and maintain roads in the commonage.

The exercise will be financed under a $1,2 million annual allocation from Zimbabwe National Road Authority (ZINARA).

“Over and above the resurfacing of Jason Moyo Street, we are working on rehabilitating other roads in the city.

“We are doing this thanks to funding from ZINARA.”

He said while ZINARA funds would assist in improving the poor road network in the city, it was a far cry from the $30 million needed to attend to all roads.

Masvingo City has a road network that stretches for approximately 257km, with only 4km in good shape, while 153km is average. This translates to only 1,5 percent of the road network in good shape.

Mr Gozo said council was anxiously waiting for the dualisation of Beitbridge-Harare Highway.

The project was stalled by the cancellation of a tender that had been awarded to Austrian contractor Geiger International, due to lack of financial capacity.

Once dualised, Mr Gozo said pressure will ease on the local authority since part of its road network would benefit from the anticipated billion-dollar project.