Council embarks on ambitious road project
THE Bulawayo City Council is set to rehabilitate over 53 kilometres of its road network this year as efforts to improve the road infrastructure in the city is quickly becoming priority, an official has said.
The local authority which is responsible for the construction, maintenance and rehabilitation of the road network within the city has vowed to rehabilitate 53,9 kilometres of its road network, with the Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube revealing that this was going to be one of the city’s priorities this year.
The latest revelations come in the backdrop of the local authority — late last year — finally managing to fill the position of assistant director of engineering services (roads branch) after the position had gone for over 10 years vacant.
In his 2016 end of year message, Mr Dube said while the year had presented the city with a number of challenges this year they were committed to the ambitious road project through reconstruction, resealing, regravelling and overlay works.
He noted that the condition of the city’s surfaced road network continued to deteriorate due to ageing and lack of timely maintenance activities revealing that a major proportion of the network requires reconstruction.
“Looking ahead into 2017, council intends to rehabilitate 53,9 kilometres of roads through the following periodic maintenance activities; 3,1 kilometres reconstruction, 16,1 kilometres reseals and 4,7 kilometres overlays, 30 kilometres regravelling.
“The city will also endeavour to increase the areas covered in the routine maintenance activities, namely pothole patching, drain cleaning, canal and stream cleaning. It is the city’s intention to further upgrade six traffic lights controlled intersections by replacing 75 Watts ES signal incandescent lamps with eight Watts LED signal lamps at six traffic lights,” said Mr Dube.
The town clerk further revealed that in light of the gazetting of Statutory Instrument 46 of 2016, the local authority will this year replace the existing traffic signs and upgrade to Sadc standards in the Central Business District (CBD) and along Airport Road.
He said the works will include renewing or providing road markings; installing missing or needed traffic signs and ensuring that they comply with Sadc traffic sign and road markings brought into force by Statutory Instrument 41 of 2016 (Road Traffic (Traffic Signs and Signals) Regulations, 2016).
On road rehabilitation work done last year, Mr Dube revealed that Zimbabwe National Road Authority (Zinara) remained a strategic partner in the improvement of the city’s road network through the provision of funds to finance most of the city’s projects.
“The majority of the works were done in-house except for surfacing works that are outsourced to exploit industry expertise. Members of the community were engaged in their respective wards for drain clearing and pothole patching exercises. This is in line with the national labourbased construction programme and aims to assist the most disadvantaged in the city.
“During the year, the city was involved in the National Road Condition Survey, which involved compiling the road network and furniture inventory as well as assessing the condition of the road to create a digital national database.
“This assisted council in prioritising projects and ensuring equitable distribution of resources in the near future. Bulawayo successfully completed the exercise just ahead of schedule and within budget,” said the town clerk.
Major projects carried out in the year include the reconstruction of 1,5 kilometres on a stretch of Market Road in Kelvin Industrial area. Premix overlays were carried out along the Trade Fair side road and Hillside Road from 14th Avenue to the entrance of Zonkezizwe Complex in Bradfield.
“Reseals were done on Hillside Road, Mpopoma Drive, Masiyephambili Drive, Burns/Philips Drive and Pumula South Main Road where a total 15,74 kilometres was resealed. A total of 33,6 kilometres of roads were regravelled from January to December 2016. The programme targets five kilometres in each ward.
“The wards covered were two, 10, 11, 12 and 29. Ward nine was not completed because the programme was temporarily suspended in November to facilitate the emergency repairs of a section of Birkenhead Road after the replacement of a collapsed sewer on Steelworks Road after a major water pipe burst,” said Mr Dube.
He, however, said on a negative, noted that the city continued to experience cases of vandalism of traffic lights and signs revealing that a total of 851 traffic signs were replaced during the year.
“Vandalism of traffic signs, street lights and other public utilities was another major challenge encountered by Bulawayo City Council during the year. A total of 851 traffic sign were replaced during 2016 as a result of vandalism.
“In view of the blockages in the drainage system which led to flooding in some areas during the onset of the 2016/2017 rain season, residents are encouraged to take ownership of council infrastructure and desist from vandalism and dumping garbage on the waterways,” said the town clerk.
Cosatu questions Zuma’s ‘deputy succession’ views
JOHANNESBURG — Cosatu has described as “curious” President Jacob Zuma’s statement that there is no ANC policy or tradition that its deputy president must succeed the president.
“While we agree with him that there is no existing policy on succession, we find it curious that he argues against the existence of a practice [in use] since the ANC’s unbanning in 1990,” the trade union federation said in a statement on Friday.
Zuma should have said as much at the ANC’s elective conference in Polokwane in 2007, when Cosatu successfully lobbied for him to replace Thabo Mbeki on the same grounds. “Cosatu would have deeply appreciated it, if the president of the ANC had shared this understanding and wisdom with the nation 10 years ago, in 2007.” At the time, ANC supporters had backed Zuma based on the belief that it was customary for deputies to succeed the party’s presidents. “We find it insincere that he never spoke out then and he never saw anything wrong with that argument at the time.” Zuma told three SABC radio stations on Thursday night that there was no such tradition. His comments were widely viewed as support for outgoing African Union commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. The ANC Women’s League has endorsed her to take over as party leader from her ex-husband. “Anyone who is nominated can contest. There is no policy. It’s not true that it’s a tradition,” Zuma said. — News24