By Shongedzai Mugwagwa
Government through the District Development Fund (DDF) has started tarring the 300-kilometre Karoi-Binga Road after Treasury availed $10 million for the project.
Government has adopted a self-funding model to upgrade roads across the country and this model is also being used on the busy Beitbridge-Chirundu highway.
The road, which is expected to provide a much shorter option for people travelling from Harare to Victoria Falls by at least 200km, requires $300 million to be completed.
The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development said they had received funds through the two percent tax on electronic transfers and this has seen DDF tarring about 10km of the road.
Speaking during a work inspectorate tour today, DDF Projects Manager in the roads department, Mr Clement Chiunye said the project, which started in early this year, had met the expected deadline.
“Initially, this project was not on the DDF budget that was approved last year, but this year the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development came up with a strategy to raise money.
“The road was under the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development Department of Roads but was handed over to us,” he said.
Mr Chiunye quoted and reiterated Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube’s hype that Government is “taking money from the people to give it back to the people.”
He added that the pegged 10km stretch was finished exactly in time as per the plan. .
The stretch of the road to Siyakobvu is about 300km, with work set to be done per section of every 10km until the whole stretch is completed.
Resources permitting, Mr Chiunye said, the 300km would be completed this year.
Investigations carried out by the Harare Post reveal that on the map, the 300km stretch is marked as tarred implying that the project was long overdue.
Almost two decades after the Government’s commitment to linking Karoi and Binga through 300 kilometer road, the venture remained a pie in the sky. After former President Robert Mugabe commissioned the road project in 1990, only 30km of the road was tarred before the project was abandoned.
