Zimpapers Logo

Freeman Razemba

Senior Reporter

MORE  than 50 000km of roads have been rehabilitated and reconstructed while 2 000 structures have been attended to since the start of the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP2) in 2021 under a sustained road and infrastructure development drive by the Second Republic.

Zimbabwe has an estimated road network of 84 000km, out of which 93 percent of the network was in fair or poor condition and in need of rehabilitation or periodic maintenance.

The Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) recently borrowed US$600 million from Nedbank of South Africa for the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme 2 and the Government gave a guarantee that the money would be repaid by the end of this month.

The notice of the guarantee was gazetted by Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube as 131H of 2023. 

Under the Constitution and the Public Debt Management Act, all Government borrowings and guarantees have to be made public.

Zinara has a substantial daily inflow of revenue from its tollgates and vehicle licence fees, but occasionally borrows to speed up progress, or to finance a major set of roadworks such as the US$88 million Mbudzi interchange so it can spread the cost over a few years instead of paying for everything at once. 

But those loans are backed by certified tollgate revenues, so lenders are certain that they will get their money back.

In an interview yesterday, ERRP2 national co-ordinator Engineer Marone Pasipamire said more roads were being attended to countrywide while they were also doing road markings.

“Since the programme started in 2021, more than 50 000km have been attended to. Various interventions have been made ranging from rehabilitation of roads, attending to gullies and wash-aways. 

“We have also attended to reseals, gravelling, regravelling and road grading. Now we have moved to road markings where we are marking those roads that were rehabilitated and resealed and that’s basically the works we have done. 

“In terms of structures, more than 2 000 structures have also been attended to under the same programme,” he said.

In Harare alone, they had targeted to reconstruct and rehabilitate more than 32 roads. 

“Initially we had targeted more than 32 roads in Harare but as the programme started and the leadership was also seeing the good work that was being done under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme, there were many other roads that we were then given to rehabilitate. But I can safely say that currently we have already attended to more than 32 roads. We are also attending to road markings like I have already alluded to.

“So some of the major roads that we have done are Masotsha Ndlovu, King George Road and Kelvin South. We are also attending to Alpes Road and as we speak we have attended to Paisley Road. There are many roads that we have done but what I can say is that more than 300km of roads have been attended to in Harare alone. Like I have said, various interventions have been made on those roads,” Eng Pasipamire said. 

President Mnangagwa launched the US$400 million ERRP2 project, a countrywide initiative meant to improve the country’s road network that had been damaged following heavy rains brought by Cyclone Idai in 2019.

More damage to roads was done by subsequent rains and the Government has been working to make the roads easily usable.

Ongoing road projects include pothole patching, grading, re-gravelling, spot dumping, wash away repairs, culverts construction, reseals and rehabilitation.

ERRP2 has created several jobs as hundreds of people have been employed to work on the different projects.

Treasury has budgeted $44 billion for ERRP2, while Zinara has set aside $90 billion to complement the programme and fund the country’s four road authorities namely urban local authorities, rural district councils, the Department of Roads and the Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (RIDA), formerly the District Development Fund (DDF).

Over 10 000km of roads are expected to be rehabilitated.

In January, the Government also bought state-of-the-art equipment under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP) as it moved to repair and reconstruct roads in most residential areas in and around the city which are now in a bad state following council’s failure to rehabilitate them.

The equipment was bought through CMED (Private) Limited.

CMED has implemented a number of road projects throughout the country since the Construction and Civil Works Unit commenced operations in March 2021.

Some of the major urban road projects rehabilitated by CMED in the last two years are Boshoff drive in Harare; Kelvin South; Ruwa Mushanje; Paisley; Masotsha Ndlovu; Ceres; Kent; Siyephambili in Bulawayo; Mbizo Road in Kwekwe and Magamba Road in Mutare.