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The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development which has embarked on a massive project to rehabilitate the country’s busiest roads should seriously consider implementing a parallel project to fence off the roads to reduce accidents caused by stray livestock.
An increasing number of road traffic accidents especially in Matabeleland region are caused by stray livestock, which means these accidents can be prevented. Government through the Zimbabwe National Road Administration expects to spend close to $11 billion on rehabilitation of the country’s road network, but this is unlikely to achieve the intended objective of reducing road accidents as long as livestock continue to stray onto the roads.

The fence along major highways which used to prevent livestock from straying onto the highways has since been vandalised. Government has acknowledged that stray animals are putting the lives of motorists and their passengers at risk.

The Minister of Transport, Dr Obert Mpofu, said government was committed to erecting the fences along the major highways to prevent livestock from straying onto the highways. Dr Mpofu said owners of livestock that caused accidents were aware that it is an offence to let livestock stray onto the highways hence many of them did not come forward to claim carcasses of their animals killed in accidents. He said as such it was difficult to prosecute the culprits.

The Traffic Council of Zimbabwe says driving along major highways in Matabeleland region is now very risky because of stray animals. It says vehicle-animal collision is as a result very prevalent in the region. The council says Mashonaland was also facing the same problem especially along the Harare-Mukumbura road.

The solution therefore is for government to, without delay, start erecting fences especially on the rehabilitated sections of the highways like the Plumtree-Mutare highway. The erection of fences should in fact run parallel with the rehabilitation of the highways so that once the rehabilitation is complete, no animals can stray onto the road.

This, we want to believe, will drastically reduce road traffic accidents involving stray animals. Only last week, four senior officials from MDC-T and MDC were involved in two separate road traffic accidents and both accidents were caused by stray cattle.

It is a fact that stray animals have and continue to cause fatal accidents on our highways yet, as already stated, these accidents could be avoided by removing animals from our highways. Government has an obligation to reduce the carnage on our roads and one way to do this is to prevent animals from straying onto the roads.

The erecting of fences could cost a couple of millions of dollars, but that is nothing compared to lives that will be saved on our roads. The communities on their part should ensure that once erected, the boundary fences are not vandalised.

It should be the responsibility of community leaders such as village heads, headmen and chiefs as well as councillors to ensure culprits are brought to book. It might be necessary to come up with a mechanism that will force those that vandalise the fences to replace them.

We want to once again implore government to move with speed to erect boundary fences along our busy highways to reduce accidents.