The Chronicle
President Mnangagwa’s appetite for infrastructural development has seen a dream that at first seemed impossible, becoming a reality.
The dream – locally funding major road projects using local companies – is now bearing fruit and as we reported yesterday, Government has completed rehabilitating and upgrading the first 100 kilometres of the 584km long Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge highway.
Five local companies are constructing the road which stretches further to Chirundu and will help link Zimbabwe and South Africa with the rest of the continent. The companies are Bitumen World, Fossil Contracting, Masimba Construction, Exodus and Company and Tensor Systems.
The highway is key in attaining Vision 2030, which seeks to turn the country into an upper middle-income economy but the plan to have local companies do the construction 20km at a time, seemed impractical at first.
Now the US$650 million project is well on course for an additional 100km set to be completed by the end of this year while Government projects that the entire project will be finished by 2022 if contracted companies complete 200km every year.
When complete, the highway which will have eight toll plazas, will result in increased and more efficient movement of cargo and passenger travel for the benefit of Zimbabwe and the Sadc region.
The modernisation of the highway has been included in the Comesa-ECA-SADC Tripartite and the African Union Programme for Regional Corridor Development.
This is only one of many major infrastructural projects, particularly in transport.
Government has been rehabilitating roads and bridges destroyed by Cyclone Dineo in 2017, through the Emergency Road Fund while new and old projects are being fast-tracked under the auspices of the Department of Roads.
There is also a plan to re-route all roads in major towns in conformity with a new national transport set-up and rehabilitate ancillary transport infrastructure including road signs, traffic lights, street lighting, stormwater drainage systems including creating and maintaining servitude lanes/areas as necessary.
Ongoing roadworks are laying the ground for massive economic investment and the Beitbridge-Harare-Chirundu Highway, in particular, is central to the economy as it links the country to Sadc, Comesa and East African states.
In August last year, President Mnangagwa officially launched the commencement of works on the first 6,5km of this North-South Corridor road rehabilitation project.
Zimbabwe can never be open for business without a proper road network. Infrastructure availability is one of the first things investors look for. Transport infrastructure will go a long way in making Zimbabwe attractive for foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows.
Bringing in inputs and distributing finished products is cheaper when transport infrastructure is on point. No investor wants to carry additional costs.
President Mnangagwa had this in mind when he started massive road works at a time when the economy was struggling.
Actions speak louder than words. As the mantra goes: African solutions for African problems.
The model that has been used restores confidence in local companies while at the same time creating thousands of jobs. It restores confidence in Zimbabwe, in Africa.
We commend the President and his Government for the hard work and delivering on their election promises.
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