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Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, Plumtree Correspondent
BULILIMA Rural District Council has announced plans to tar 268 kilometres of road within the district at a cost of about $69 million in a bid to improve the district’s road network system.

The district which has 22 wards does not have a tarred road.

Bulilima Rural District Council Chief Executive Officer, Mr John Brown Ncube said the local authority was going to resort to private public partnerships to ensure that the project is successful.

“Council will engage Government, business people, locals in the diaspora and other stakeholders in the PPP arrangement that will ensure that we tar State roads within the district as we don’t even have a kilometre of tarred road.

“So far we have made consultations with the Ministry of Transport who have informed us that the district has 26, 8 kilometres of State roads and tarring all these roads will need $68 826 983. As council we have made a resolution that will go through our full council and if adopted we will start consultations to get the project underway,” he said.

Mr Ncube said the local authority was losing a lot of potential revenue due to the poor state of roads in the district.

He said a number of service providers were now shunning the district.

“We are losing a lot of revenue because some businesses are performing badly due to the poor state of roads. Some liquor supply companies have stopped deliveries to bottle stores within the district which has forced some of them to stop their operations.

“We used to make about $80 000 per annum from licensing bottle stores and that money is no longer coming in anymore,” he said.