Masvingo(New Ziana) -The government has been impressed by the work of local contractors working on the Harare-Beitbridge road which matches standards in the region.

This emerged during a tour of sections of the road on Thursday by Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Joel Biggie Matiza, who expressed satisfaction with the quality of the work being undertaken, which he described as “excellent”.

“It has been said that the local contractors will not produce quality work but the argument is defeated now seeing the work that they can do. In fact, traffic has increased from Beitbridge and from Zambia because there is confidence that work is being done to rehabilitate the road and the standards are the same with South Africa and Zambia. We have the state-of-the-art roads coming up by locals, this is what is key,” he said.

Matiza said contracting locals saved the government from lengthy negotiations which at times would last many years without any progress.

“I want to thank the President for bringing this initiative because it cascades to our communities, to our societies in terms of disposable income and its local, everything is localised,” he said.

By mid-October this year the contractors are expected to have achieved the target of 100 kilometres and move to the next level of 200 kilometres.

“If we add up the kilometres that we have already done by mid-October we will have achieved 100 km though we have some who will finish by the end of October so, that target has been largely been achieved,” said Matiza.

New Ziana