B/Bridge-Harare Highway upgrade gathers momentum

REHABILITATION and upgrading of the Harare-Beitbridge Highway will continue following the release of a special budget for the multi-milliondollar project, Transport and Infrastructure Development minister Joel Biggie Matiza said yesterday.

He said despite a large chunk of the government budget having gone towards the fight against the coronavirus, work on the road that feeds into several countries in the region would go ahead seamlessly.

“We are all aware a lot of the government’s 2020 budget has gone towards the fight against COVID-19, but a special budget has been set aside for this road and there is no going back,” Matiza said after touring a stretch of the road awarded to Bitumen World, one of the five contractors working on the 580km road.

Matiza toured a section where earthworks are almost complete and site manager Bigboy Sibindi said they would start surfacing the road anytime soon.

They repaired the 150km road from Rutenga to Beitbridge as part of their contract.

“We are using state-of-the-art equipment for the rehabilitation and upgrades and in some section we are having to destroy and rebuild,” Sibindi said.

Bitumen World director Adre Zietsman, who lives on the site camp, said the equipment cost $15 million and the road would not need any upgrade for 20 years after completion.

Their contract includes erection of a servitude fence on their section of the road.

Bitumen World is self-sufficient and has an asaphalt plant that prepares all the ingredients of the road to be widened from six to 12,5 metres with a thickness of the surface layer above 12 millimetres, Zietsman said.

Matiza said the road should be complete by 2023.