Shurugwi-Mhandamabwe Road reconstruction begins
Mako Jerera
The Government and a local construction company Road Trackers Construction (RTC) have started the reconstruction of the 43km Shurugwi-Mhandamabwe Road which connects Midlands and Masvingo provinces.
Government says the rehabilitation of the highway is part of broader plans to improve key infrastructure in the country in line with the Second Republic’s National Development Strategy One (NDS1).
The work will be carried out over a period of 12 months.
Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Felix Mhona and the Minister of State for Midlands Provincial Affairs and Devolution Owen Ncube led a team of senior Government officials and conducted a ground breaking ceremony in Shurugwi .
The contractor whose equipment is already at the site, has since started working on detours along the road as well as employing people in and around Shurugwi.
Minister Mhona said Government would continue moving in to rehabilitate other roads countrywide.
“We are very happy as the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development. Let me hasten to thank His Excellency Cde Dr Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, our visionary leader who has been championing this trajectory of infrastructural development.
“We are working with the private sector to ensure that we make our roads passable. We are working with all the necessary departments to ensure that our roads are OK so that we don’t lose lives unnecessarily. We have lined up several activities to ensure that we enhance the ease of doing business.”
The Midlands community is equally excited about the business opportunities that will be unlocked by the rehabilitation of the Highway.
“We are very excited as a province to witness such a key milestone in our midst. The year 2024 has started on a high note and has signaled better things to come for the Midlands province as our priority road has been targeted for reconstruction confirming the new dispensation’s development approach of leaving no one and no place behind,” said Midlands Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Honourable Owen Ncube.
Minister Mhona said the ministry would continue its mandate to ensure there is trafficable and navigable roads countrywide.
“And it is also a humble plea to the people of Zimbabwe that whenever we say, ‘Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo’ as alluded by His Excellency Cde Dr Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, this is what we mean. So you find out that employment creation, the local youths are being recruited by the contractor and also the issues of quality is of paramount important to us.
“As you can also see we have the quality-control resident engineer who has been monitoring this project. So I would also want to allay the fears of the citizens that once we rehabilitate the road we expect the life span to be 20 years on average so that we do not revisit the same road. This is what we are going to be monitoring together with my team. We are not ending here, we also have very topical roads. We have Bulawayo-Nkayi Road; we have even Bulawayo-Victoria Falls which is in a sorry state as we speak, but we are saying we are coming there.
“We are not only going to end on trunk roads but we are also going be revisiting other locations so that at the end of the day our road network will be enhanced,” Minister Mhona said.
Speaking during the same ceremony, Minister Ncube described the occasion as “auspicious, monumental and historic” in that it marked the commitment by the Second Republic to modernise and industrialise the country in pursuit of an upper middle income economy before 2030.
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