Relief for motorists

MOTORISTS who use Bulawayo-Beitbridge road are relieved that the badly
damaged stretch near Makhado area is being rehabilitated.
Prior to the reconstruction of the road, motorists endured difficulties in navigating the
potholed section of the road.
The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development is using funds from the
Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme Phase Two (ERRP2) for the project
where it contracted Bitumen World to reconstruct 25km of the road and repair the
rest by filling up potholes.
Motorists, who were interviewed by this publication during the weekend, said that
they were relieved that finally the section of the road was being rehabilitated.
Tonderai Mbedzi said the Makhado stretch was a nightmare for most road users.
“The Makhado stretch was no longer safe. We are so happy with the professionalism
that the contractor, Bitumen World is exhibiting.
“Our happiness extends to the President’s Vision 2030. With a good road
infrastructure, we can easily attain the upper-middle-income economy,” said Mbedzi.
Oliver Muropa, a truck driver, said driving a 30-tonne truck along a bad road is very
painful and unbearable.
“I am a cross-border truck driver, who spends months on the road. I do Durban to
DRC and back and the Makhado stretch used to give me the worst nightmare.
“The stretch is short but driving along it was very tiresome,” said Muropa.
Another motorist said: “I use this road every week on my way to Zhove Dam from
Bulawayo, where i order fish for re-sell.
“However, the bulk of my profits would go towards servicing the suspension for the
car due to the bad state of the road at Makhado area.
“I am happy now because the Government is doing great work by rehabilitating the
road,” said the motorist.
The state of the road has been a cause for concern to various stakeholders as well
as motorists as driving along the highway had become a nightmare due to potholes
and total collapse of some stretches of the road.
From the border town, the road is badly damaged around Mazunga and Makhado.
Reconstruction is underway from the 221km to the 229km peg in the Makhado area.

This project is running concurrently with the rehabilitation of the Bulawayo-Victoria
Falls road. More than 50 000km of roads have been rehabilitated and reconstructed
while 2 000 sections have been attended to since the start of the ERRP2 in 2021
under the sustained road and infrastructure development drive.
Matabeleland South Provincial roads engineer, Mangisi Nkomo, did not take
questions from the media, saying he clearance from his principals.
Efforts to get a comment the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development,
Felix Mhona, were fruitless as his mobile phone was not being answered.