Upgrading of the $1 billion Beitbridge-Harare-Chirundu
Highway will take a phased approach through to 2022, with works having already
started on some sections of the key road.
The highway is a major economic corridor, providing South
Africa with a link to Africa’s interior through the continent’s busiest inland
port of entry at Beitbridge via Zimbabwe.
The project is being financed with local resources after
foreign contractors repeatedly failed to meet their obligations and secure
funding.
At least nine companies have been tasked with upgrading
specific sections. Government has also directed local authorities to dualise
10km stretches leading into their administrative centres.
To this end, works have started on the highway near Chivi
and Beatrice, with other councils understood to be mobilising equipment to get
on site soon.
The construction by local authorities is in line with
Government’s ongoing Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme, and will be done
to international standards and then consolidated into the overall project.
In an interview last week, Transport and Infrastructure
Development Minister Joel Biggie Matiza said the highway had National Project
Status and work on it should reflect such.
He said the Second Republic, under President Emmerson
Mnangagwa, had committed itself to economic turnaround and infrastructure
development.
Minister Matiza said: “The project was on the cards for a
long time now and many suitors came on with nothing moving. We had Geiger
expressing interest to do the road, but that one failed because there was no
proof of funding.
“The New Dispensation and the President cancelled that
project. President Emmerson Mnangagwa wants it done and his vision is to make
that road workable.
“Government decided to localise the project with local
expertise and players. We have seen, in the first phase, local authorities —
and in this case Chivi and recently Beatrice — moving to rehabilitate 10
kilometres into their administrative centres.
“We will then award tenders to nine locals to then widen
the rest of the road and eventually dualise. This will take about
three-and-a-half years to complete.”
Minister Matiza said Government was organising equipment
for contractors, who will purchase it through their contracts. He said the nine
contracts should be awarded by February 2019.
Cabinet this year withdrew the tender awarded to Austrian
firm Geiger for dualisation of the Harare-Beitbridge-Chirundu Highway, with
President Mnangagwa saying Government had become impatient with lack of
activity on the project. Geiger won the tender commissioned work in May 2016,
but failed to move on-site. Sunday Mail
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