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Elita Chikwati, Harare Bureau
THE Government will employ a raft of measures, including using local and international supervisors and inspectors, to ensure the $984 million dualisation of the Beitbridge–Harare Highway launched by President Mugabe on Thursday is of high quality and meets regional and international standards.

Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo said in an interview yesterday that every stage of construction would be tightly monitored.

His assurance comes against a background of poor delivery of projects by companies that saw some roads developing potholes, barely six months after construction.

After completion of the rehabilitation of the 820-kilometre Plumtree-Mutare Highway at a cost of $206m in early 2015, Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Development Michael Madanha indicated that there was poor workmanship as the road was already developing faults before the end of the year.

The road was rehabilitated by Infralink, a joint venture between Group Five of South Africa and the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration.

As such, officially commissioning the Beitbridge- Harare Highway on Thursday at Chaka Growth Point in Chirumanzi, President Mugabe maintained that there was a need for high quality delivery of the road.

The road, which is an important element of the Zim-Asset cluster of infrastructure and utilities, is strategic not only to Zimbabwe, but the whole of the Sadc region, hence the need to be perfectly compacted as it will carry some of the heaviest haulage trucks.

Said President Mugabe: “The road therefore needs to meet international stands in order to maintain the traffic volumes on this busiest corridor in the region.”

Speaking to our Harare Bureau yesterday, Dr Gumbo said the ministry was going to work hard to ensure the road, which was expected to last for 20 to 25 years, was constructed to its satisfaction and also met the value for money.

He said the contracted company, Geiger International, was internationally acclaimed.

“We will also have a team of engineers to supervise the quality of the road at every stage of development.

“The road should meet international standards and get the value for our money. A team from the Ministry will inspect and supervise together with international engineers step by step. We are emphasising on the value for money so the end product should satisfy us,” the Minister said.

Dr Gumbo said there was an agreement with the company that after the work had been done, the contractor would maintain the road for a certain period before handing it over to the ministry.

“We have agreed that they will maintain the road for an agreed period so the road will remain up to standard and satisfy the owners of the project,” he said.

Dr Gumbo said some of the roads were now in bad state due to low maintenance.

He said some of the roads are more than 60 years old and need refurbishing.

This year most roads were damaged by heavy rains and this resulted in the increase in potholes even on highways.

Dr Gumbo said roads should be maintained and refurbished periodically to keep them in shape and increase their lifespan.

He said the impact of the new road would not only bring advantages to locals, but the region as a whole.

“The road is not only important to Zimbabwe, but to southern Africa as a whole. Most countries cannot access ports without passing through Zimbabwe.

The road is significant not only for economic reason, but also benefit the society socially,” Dr Gumbo said.

“We negotiated that 40 percent of the value of the road will go to the local companies who will be contracted. This is very significant in terms of employment creation even for the general work during construction”.

He said some local companies to be employed would be subjected to the same conditions and quality would not be compromised.

Dr Gumbo said the dualisation of the Beitbridge Road would also see a decline in road accidents.

He said the timing of the dualisation was appropriate considering that the country was also moving with times.

“We used to have gravel roads and those were the days, we later had narrow tarred roads and now due to the increase in the volume of traffic, we are dualising. We have to widen the roads because of the increase in the volume of traffic,” Dr Gumbo said.