News / National
Mutare bypass construction postponed
15 Dec 2020 at 15:28hrs | Views
Construction of the planned Mutare Bypass road, which seeks to divert traffic that passes through the Central Business District to and from Forbes Border Post, has been put on hold to pave way for other priority projects.
The bypass road has been on the cards for some years and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development was planning to seek partners for its construction.
The move was necessitated by a notable increase in the volume of traffic through the city, especially heavy cross border vehicles.
Manicaland provincial roads engineer Atherton Zindoga said the main reason for creating a bypass road was to ease traffic flowing through the city, which was damaging the roads.
"That project has been put on hold for now as we direct funding to other priority road projects. We will start looking for investors for the bypass road at a later stage but for now, the Christmas Pass road is still in good shape to handle the amount of traffic that passes through," he said.
Mutare is about 280 km from Beira, making it the shortest route to the sea port of Beira in Mozambique, for most exporters and importers in Southern Africa.
The bypass road has been on the cards for some years and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development was planning to seek partners for its construction.
The move was necessitated by a notable increase in the volume of traffic through the city, especially heavy cross border vehicles.
"That project has been put on hold for now as we direct funding to other priority road projects. We will start looking for investors for the bypass road at a later stage but for now, the Christmas Pass road is still in good shape to handle the amount of traffic that passes through," he said.
Mutare is about 280 km from Beira, making it the shortest route to the sea port of Beira in Mozambique, for most exporters and importers in Southern Africa.
Source - the herald