By Vumani Mthiyane
The Gwanda Municipality has availed RTGS$1.2 million for the construction and rehabilitation of the town’s road network.
The funds were sourced from the Zimbabwe National Road Authority’s (ZINARA) road rehabilitation fund.
The development was welcomed by locals who said the roads in the mining town were now in a deplorable state due to neglect.
“Now we have all the reasons to pay council taxes because the service is now at our hands. As transport operators we would like to applaud the municipality for the good work of rehabilitating the road network,” said Mandlenkosi Mokwele, a local taxi operator.
Another public transport operator said the poor state of the roads was causing a lot of damage to their vehicles.
In an interview with CITE the town’s engineer, Engineer Phakamile Ndebele, said the funds will cater for about 5 kilometers of the road network.
“This project was funded by ZINARA to a tune of RTGS $1 200 00.00 for tarring these routes. In Jacaranda it will start from the municipality workshop via the provincial heroes’ shrine right up to Nare shops.
“The other major road is the Mutukuri to Spitzkop medium shops stretching right up to Nare shops making a total of 4.7km,” said Eng. Ndebele.
Asked about the time frame for the project, the Engineer said the project will end in June 2019.
“We are improving our road network in town especially our high and medium density areas,” he said.
However, some critics say the road humps in some sections of the road are not standard.
“The humps are terrible high, it very difficult for low clearance vehicles cars like the BMWs and Mercs, the quality is poor,” said a resident who identified himself as Ndlovu.
Most roads in urban centres are in a poor state due to years of neglect by government and local authorities.
