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BCC workers repair a road in this file photo

Oliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council needs about $115 million to rehabilitate its ageing road infrastructure in the next five years. The bulk of the city’s road network is littered with potholes that continue to worsen each year during rainy seasons.

The situation has irked the motoring public and residents who blame poor roads for the spate of accidents.

The city’s Director of Engineering Services Engineer Simela Dube told captains of industry and businesses during yesterday’s business consultative meeting in Bulawayo that most roads in the country’s second largest city were in a bad state.

“What we need really is investment in road network. There’re opportunities for business to partner with us to deal with the situation on our road infrastructure.

“If we’re to maintain our roads in good shape, we need $115 million in the next five to 10 years,” Dube said.

“And obviously, because of the rains that fell after the 2012 survey, the situation has worsened and we need investors to partner with us in maintaining our roads.”

The engineer admitted the local authority has been battling to deal with potholes across the city’s roads saying the entire network was in need of a complete overhaul.

In January this year, the government launched a $75,000 pothole patching project in Bulawayo with support from the private sector to improve the state of roads in the CBD.

The initiative was part of a national pothole patching project that the government, Zimbabwe National Roads Administration, local authorities and Bitumen World, among other private sector players, have jointly embarked on.