Harare City receives US$ 26m for roads rehabilitation

Harare City Council has received US$ 26m from the Government’s Emergency Rehabilitation Fund to ensure that roads are repaired before the onset of the rainy season.

According to Acting Town Clerk Mrs Josephine Ncube, so far US$ 6m has been used in road maintenance. However, the Acting Town Clerk confirmed that the programme is being funded by the Emergency Rehabilitation Fund and that the City of Harare has been awarded US$ 26m for roads repair. Moreover, US$6m has already been used to repair the city roads.

Also read: Zimbabwe: Bulawayo needs U.S$115mn for roads rehabilitation

Nonetheless, coming up with the list of roads to be repaired, the city council has identified major arterial roads, which are widespread within the wards.

There is need for speed to ensure the roads are repaired before the onset of the rains and teams had been put in place to ensure that the roads are repaired on time. The Council has also identified roads that require urgent attention, which include Granville Cemetery Road, Kuwadzana Extension (when turning into Bulawayo Road) and Ardbennie Road, among others.

The city council request

The city council is also requesting the Department of Works (in the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development) to include a provision for black spots and humps in the 2018 budget. The City of Harare is currently embarking on the second phase of roadworks which entail road reconstruction, rehabilitation, resealing, overlaying and marking. The city’s 2018 budget proposes to allocate US$12m to roads and maintenance programmes.

Also read: Zimbabwean government to construct roads and bridges in Caledonia

“It therefore behooves the city to fully capacitate its roads maintenance teams and steer clear of hiring plant, equipment and machinery. Council will indeed be seized with programmes to render zones fully functional before end of 2018 and the envisaged retooling exercise as targeted in the 2017 and 2018 budget is particularly instructive,” said the city’s finance committee chairperson Councillor Luckson Mukunguma during his presentation of the 2018 budget.

In February, President Mugabe officially declared a state of disaster on Harare’s roads and road infrastructure through a notice published in the Government Gazette. The road network has not had any meaningful routine maintenance over the last 15 years. Government has pledged to help rehabilitate the capital’s 5 000km road network.