Road authorities to outsource equipment for speedy road rehab phase two

ROAD authorities have been urged to outsource equipment in order to speedily implement the Emergency Roads Rehabilitation Programme Phase 2 (ERRP2) which seeks to improve the country’s road network.

Government has set aside $33,6 billion for the ERRP2 which was officially launched by President Mnangagwa last month.

Speaking recently during a visit to Matabeleland South Province to assess progress done by road authorities, Transport and Infrastructure Development Ministry Permanent Secretary Engineer Theodius Chinyanga said the EPPR was a pertinent project which road authorities had to treat as a matter of urgency.

“We are going around to understand the administrative problems that our road authorities might have and try to advise, correctly direct them on how to handle administrative issues around the ERRP.

“We hope all road authorities are now busy somehow. For most of our work we have urged road authorities to outsource so that we can quickly get on top of this situation in terms of road maintenance,” he said.

“This is a pertinent issue because we have some service providers such as bus operators withdrawing from some of the routes because of poor roads which in turn makes the lives of citizens difficult.

“Some communities are failing to access essential services such as schools and clinics because of poor roads.”

Eng Chinyanga said under the ERRP programme they were following a bottom-up approach. He said Provincial Development Coordinators (PDCs) were asked to send a list of roads which each province wanted to be prioritised under the programme.

“It’s our hope that work has started.

“We know that there are issues concerning procurement and we will try to assist all road authorities in addressing this challenge,” he said.

Matabeleland South Provincial Affairs Minister, Cde Abedinico Ncube said now that funds had been availed by Government, there was a need for road authorities to be on the ground.

He said the road network in the province was in a terrible state which was making the lives of community members difficult.

DDF Matabeleland South provincial coordinator, Mr Moment Malandu said they had a total network of 2 486km in the province which was all in a bad shape and was set to be rehabilitated.

He said they had started working on some roads although they did not have equipment and were short staffed thereby making it difficult to implement the programme.–chroncieclz.w