Govt acquires equipment for urban roads rehab

Zim Now Writer

The government has acquired state-of-the-art equipment for urban roads repairs as it moves to rehabilitate and reconstruct roads in residential areas whose dire state has been worsened by the rains.

The equipment, which was bought through CMED (Private) Limited, was commissioned by Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Felix Mhona along Alpes Road in Harare, which CMED has since started reconstructing.

Part of the equipment that was commissioned by Mhona includes two road reclaimers, two D8 Bulldozers, four 20 000-litre water bowsers, two 20-tonne recovery trucks, three excavators, four graders, one double drum roller, three Padfoot Rollers, three pneumatic rollers, two chip spreaders, one front end loader, four 10-tonne lorries and one tractor horse.

Mhona said government cannot just watch as roads continue to deteriorate although they lie under the purview of local authorities, adding that government had changed its model on the delivery of road infrastructure, with the Department of Roads assuming a quality control function while local contractors became active players in the rehabilitation of road infrastructure in line with the empowerment drive.

“So what it entails is that our roads are weak, even if we do pothole patching we still need to do complete reconstruction. And a good example of this is the one road that we are witnessing today (yesterday), that is Alpes. And I am happy that it will start covering Mount Pleasant, it would go to Vainona, Hatcliffe and this stretch is going to cover close to 18km,” said Mhona.

CMED managing director Engineer Davison Mhaka said Zimbabwe has an estimated road network of 84 000km, out of which 93 percent was in fair or poor condition and in need of rehabilitation or periodic maintenance.

“The Zimbabwean Government has targeted to increase the number of kilometres of road network converted to meet Southern Africa Transport and Communications Commission standards from 5 percent to 10 percent by 2025; and to increase the number of kilometres of road network in good condition from 14 702km to 24 500km by 2025,” said Mhaka.