Govt forges ahead with Infrastructure development agenda

Harare (New Ziana) – Government on Thursday announced a massive $156 billion infrastructure development budget for next year, which is expected to help spur economic growth.
The Second Republic has embarked on an unprecedented infrastructure development programme spanning several sectors, mainly transport and agriculture, using domestic resources.
Presenting the 2022 national budget, Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube said several key infrastructure projects had already been completed.
“The 2022 Budget provides an overall infrastructure spending plan of $156.4 billion to support mainly ongoing projects,” he said.
In transport infrastructure for example, Ncube said the main thrust in 2022 was ensuring the completion of on-going projects, such as the Beitbridge-Harare highway.
“Government is undertaking various road rehabilitation and development across the country to reduce the cost of doing business with key successes being Seke road, 250km Harare-Beitbridge road, 6.5km Makuti-Hellsgate road, Emergency Roads Rehabilitation Programme Phase II (ERRP II) and Mbudzi Inter-change.
“Under the Road Development Programme, tremendous progress has been achieved on implementation of Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge road with 255km having been completed to date. A total of ZWL$12.8 billion was availed during the period under review. Judging by the current progress, 300km will be completed by December 2021, with 560km now envisaged to be completed by 2023.”
He said other major works successfully undertaken to date included the rehabilitation and upgrading of Seke road 6.5km, 10 km section of Karoi-Binga road, Chivi-Mandamabwe road 13.6 km & Musevezi, Karanda & Monte Casino 80 bridges among several others.
“In 2022, consistent with the NDS1, our interventions will continue to be centred on scaling up implementation of the Road Development Programme with priority being on the highly trafficked and congested networks, as well as increasing access and connectivity to marginalised and underserviced areas,” he said.
“A total of $43.9 billion has been set aside for the Roads Development Programme from fiscal resources, with $20 billion going towards the Harare-Beitbridge Road and $23.9 billion for other priority projects.”
Ncube said in 2022, $22.4 billion will be channeled towards sustaining works on ongoing dam construction projects.
“Current priority is on implementation of Gwayi Shangani and Chivhu dams with $4 billion and $2.2 billion having been availed, respectively, for the period under review. Gwayi-Shangani dam is currently at 44.5 percent completion, with works such as excavations of dam spillway and outlets having been undertaken and the dam wall constructed to a height of 26 out of 72 metres.
“On the other hand, Chivhu dam is at 59 percent complete, with major works such as excavations of core trench including riverbed, outlet pipe trench and excavation of water treatment plant having been completed. Progress on the two projects has, however, been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and other project implementation bottlenecks.”
New Ziana