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Gweru City Council House

Lovemore Zigara, Midlands Correspondent
GWERU City Council needs at least $40 million to revamp its road network, which seriously needs attention as most of the roads have outlived their lifespan.

The Midlands capital has a road network of over 1 200 kilometres and the local authority has only managed to rehabilitate 27 kilometres of the city’s road network since September last year, records show.

To date, the city has accessed $5.6 million from the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) of which the local authority has so far used $4.1 million.

Gweru director of engineering services, Engineer Robson Manatsa, said council will in the next phase of the rehabilitation exercise, which is likely to start in March, resurface major roads used by public transport operators.

“There is still a lot of work to be done to ensure that our roads are in a good state. We need at least $40 million to ensure that we rehabilitate the city’s road network and so far we have rehabilitated 27 kilometres under the Emergency Rehabilitation Programme,” he said.

“We have already flighted tenders for the next phase of the rehabilitation exercise and after all the processes are complete we hope to resume our work in March.

“We are looking at rehabilitating a further 36 kilometres of the road network where we are targeting major routes, which are mostly used by public transport operators.”

Meanwhile, Kwekwe Mayor Clr Matenda Madzoke has said the local authority is yet to get their Zinara allocations for this year despite battling with potholes.

Clr Madzoke indicated council has written to the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development to avail funds for the purchase of pothole patching machine to repair the city’s roads.

“We have written a letter to the minister to ask if he could assist our city with pothole patching machines, which will make the job easier and we can patch as many roads as possible.

“Most of our roads are now impassable because of this challenge in the city,” said the councillor.

He said they were also requesting a grader to rehabilitate some of the city’s gravel roads.

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