Work on Christmas Pass detour imminent
WORK on the Christmas Pass bypass in Mutare, Manicaland province, is set to begin soon after Government sealed a deal for the project with a local contractor, Leengate Private Limited.
In April, Cabinet announced plans to construct a 33km road to serve as an alternative route in and out of Mutare.
This was occasioned by the high number of road traffic accidents, especially those involving haulage trucks, at Christmas Pass.
Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution Mr Misheck Mugadza said a public-private partnership deal was now in place for the project.
“Works on the implementation of the Christmas Pass bypass are at an advanced stage, in which we expect the groundbreaking ceremony to be held soon. The public-private partnership is already in place and all is ready for works to commence, save for a few logistical matters to be sorted out for the take-off,” said Minister Mugadza.
The new road will access the Forbes Border Post and relieve congestion along the Christmas Pass road, which has become unsafe.
The project is expected to dovetail with construction of a new dry port to improve cargo clearance at the border post.
About 300 trucks are cleared at the port daily, which often results in long queues stretching for over 15km. Proposals have since been put in place to use vast tracts of land at Quest Motors as a stopover for truckers to park their vehicles as they await clearance, thus minimising pressure on the city’s feeder roads that lead to the Forbes Border Post.
The Quest Motors site covers 20 hectares. The firm’s general manager, Mr Carl Fernandez, said: “We have an idea to do a truck park and we will be speaking to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) on the issue of having the trucks coming in here. The idea is, if the trucks park here, they are pre-cleared and use the back road to the border.
“This entails us also putting in a weigh bridge and becoming a one-stop shop for the Forbes Border Post to enable it to handle the traffic. It also gives us a way of taking the traffic off the road and streamlining operations. It is an idea we like to explore as a business venture.”
Currently, Zimra is operating from five different sites, thereby creating inefficiencies at the border.