Staff Reporter
People from across the country’s urban areas have welcomed Government initiative to take over the maintenance of urban infrastructure, as they have suffered poor service delivery from the MDC Alliance-led Councils.
This follows the announcement by the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Monica Mutsvangwa, during a Post Cabinet Briefing, that Government through its Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Elimination of Congestion and Installation of Proper lighting in the Country’s Urban Areas, has adopted the intervention and project management on infrastructure and Transport Logistics and Enforcement in the urban area.
“The public is advised that the infrastructure component includes the repair of street lights along major trunk roads; repair and upgrading of traffic lights and signals at major junctions; installation of new traffic signals; addition of filter lanes at roundabouts and selected junctions; introduction of dedicated bus lanes and carriage markings; construction of proper curbing and jersey barriers; completion of one way roads; widening and repair of roads; and improvement of termini facilities,” recounted Minister Mutsvangwa
This publication managed to interview an official with the Harare Residents Trust (HRT), who said, the move by Government to take up some of the projects would help bring back Harare City sunshine status.
“We are confident now, that the Government has stepped in to manage infrastructure in the urban areas, sanity will return to our urban areas. It is a nightmare driving in Harare when the traffic lights are not functioning, especially during the peak hours, worse still during the rainy season.
“We have written correspondence several times to the City Authorities, complaining about the poor standards on service delivery which were next to none, but as you can see we still suffer the same problems every day,” said the HRT official who preferred anonymity.
ZANU PF Acting Secretary for Information Cde Patrick Chinamasa said Party will not wait until the 2023 elections to improve the lives of urban residents, noting that a number of projects that have been abandoned by the MDC Alliance-led council due to failure to deliver, have been adopted and improved by ZANU PF. It must therefore be well documented that the improvements that the citizens are witnessing are as a result of the Central Government and not the MDC Alliance-led councils.
Meanwhile, Government is in the process of resurfacing Seke road which is now 80% complete, Simon Mazorodze/Paisley Road Junction, which will form part of the Mbudzi Traffic Inter-Change is over 75% and the Mbudzi interchange designs have been completed and the selection of detour roads namely Chimhanda, Stoneridge, Amalinda and Forbes has been done.
