Let’s keep roadworks rehab momentum

THE heavy rains of the last five weeks have caused more damage to unmaintained roads and exposed the odd weak spot on properly maintained roads, as a sudden pothole or crack appears.

No road is ever perfect and no road lasts forever. This is why annual maintenance, usually done in the dry seasons after the rains have retreated, is one of those regular chores of all local authorities and the Department of Roads on the national highway system.

Much of the present challenge and the need for an emergency roads rehabilitation programme was the skipped maintenance for several years, with minor damage becoming major damage as rainy season after rainy season ripped a road to shreds, and little potholes became gaping rents in the road as they combined and grew.

A lot of work has been done in recent years to upgrade the national highway system, and put in place policies of not just rebuilding old sections, but of improving their layout and as money becomes available continue the work of dualising the most critical stretches until the day comes when the backbone of the national highway grid will be dual carriageway throughout, a feat comparable to that of the 1950s and 1960s when the same backbone was converted from narrow tar to wide tar.

The core of the national highway grid is the pair of routes running eastwest and north-south. The east-west route, running Mutare-Harare-Bulawayo-Plumtree was extensively rehabilitated under an older model involving a foreign contractor in the years shortly before the Second Republic.

Generally speaking this highway is in good condition, but the odd patch has appeared where it is clear that the original work was not quite up to scratch, and where it would be useful to remake a section, often of just a 100m or so, rather than do makeshift repairs every year.

This sort of problem arises on every highway, new and rebuilt, and in any case the annual maintenance and odd repair will ensure a decent highway remains in good condition for at least 25 years, and with some more robust maintenance from then onwards will last at least 50 years, before some sort of rebuild is needed.

The main south-north route, the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare-Chirundu highway is being rebuilt under a new model, the Government taking the role of the main contractor and hiring approved Zimbabwean companies, those with proven track record of being able to build highend highways and possessing the required equipment and employing the required skilled engineers.

So far a little over half the required work has been done, with most of the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare leg now complete and contractors starting to move equipment to the next section, the Harare-Chirundu leg.

The completion of work on the Mutare-Harare-Bulawayo-Plumtree highway and most of the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare highway allowed the Government to upgrade these to premium routes, and justify the 50 percent higher tolls along their length, the extra money being needed to pay for the work, and the gradual upgrade to dual carriageway, and more critically pay for top-class maintenance so they remain premium roads. Some tricky decisions now have to be made on the next leg, the Harare-Chirundu highway.

Some sections are in quite bad states of repair and the question might arise if emergency repairs have to be made once the rains retreat, while the rebuild and upgrade proceeds, a sort of double costing operation.

However, the work when done by local contractors is rather cleverly broken up into quite short stretches, which do not have to connect from the start.

This should allow the worst bits to be done first avoiding the need for expensive emergency repairs while some degree of light patching or other repairs can be done fairly cheaply on other sections to hold the line while the major work proceeds.

At the same time the work on the ring road around the huge Harare Metropolitan area needs to start.

This again can be done in stages with the first and most critical stage being the western link between the Masvingo and Chirundu highways.

While the link re-routing the east and west traffic is important, it is less critical as at least the highways from these directions are dual-carriageway right across the built-up area, although a lot of heavy trucks that should not be in the city centre are brought in.

The national highway grid goes far beyond this cross imposed on the map, with many other routes and connections.

Many would regard the most important of these being the western north-south route, the Beitbridge-Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highway, which the Government sees as a priority for proper and full repair, and the more extreme rebuilding in a couple of critical sections where the damage is too severe for repair.

In many ways, considering the importance of this highway, the core grid and future premium grid could well move from the present cross to a sort of H-shape, with two north-south premium routes crossed by the eastwest premium route.

The Second Republic, unfortunately, could not start the road rebuilding and emergency rehabilitation immediately on taking office.

First of all it had to reform Zinara, the source of much of the road financing although the taxpayer has been coming though with a decent share in each budget.

We tend to forget the sort of mess Zinara was in with administrative costs chewing up most of the income, instead of almost 90 percent going on roads as is the position now.

There was also the need to find a model that worked, as the switch from the concept that a foreign contractor must always be the best to the new concept that we have in Zimbabwe enough skills and equipment to do the job ourselves, and probably do it better.

Many other roads will need repair besides the tolled-national highways which are the central Government’s laid down responsibility, although the Government has been extending its range and footprint.

Most rural district councils now have the basic road machinery they need, the grader and the trucks, to maintain their gravel roads.

We should not sneer at gravel; a decent gravel road is far better than a tarred road with broken surface and potholes, and can be repaired cheaply and properly rather quickly.

In fact Bulawayo City Council, in one of its brighter moments, has noted that decent tarred roads are only needed on the busiest arterial roads. The small suburban side roads with their light traffic could well be good gravel. Anyone who has driven on light-traffic maintained gravel and zero-maintained broken tar would agree. But in any case, our entire road system from the most minor side road all the way to the major premium national highways must be in a continual state of improvement, expansion and upgrade.

As more users come aboard, there will be more tolls and more vehicle licences to pay for all this upgrade, as well as the essential maintenance to keep what we have.

We have seen the results of the major shift by the Second Republic once it did get the financing sorted out, and Zinara working properly to raise the money, and now we just need to keep up the progress.