MASVINGO — The Transport and Infrastructural Development ministry permanent secretary Munesu Munodawafa has said the government is set to restart the stalled dualisation of the country’s busiest highway, the Harare-Beitbridge Road, after identifying a new foreign contractor following the failure by a local consortium to undertake the project 10 years down the line.
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Munodawafa told journalists in Masvingo on the sidelines of the ministry’s annual strategic workshop yesterday at the Great Zimbabwe Hotel that they had already completed a feasibility study and were only awaiting resolution of the impasse with the local consortium that failed to complete the project.
“The project failed to take off due to the hyperinflationary environment. It is now 10 years since the local consortium failed to complete the project, so we have to disengage. We have to complete the dualisation,” Munodawafa said.
Munodawafa said current feasibility studies have been completed and what was left is to clear the impasse before work resumes.
“We have completed the feasibility studies and $930 million is needed to construct the road and we are now in the process where we are talking to the local consortium with the view of engaging another contractor and then leave the former to negotiate to be sub-contractors.”
He said the locals will benefit as 60% of the project should be sub-contracted to local companies.
Due to the impasse, the Bulawayo-Plumtree Highway has been dualised ahead of the Harare-Beitbridge one. The Harare-Beitbridge Road has now been dubbed “the highway of death” due to several fatal accidents that occur every year along it.
