Bulawayo-Tsholotsho road construction kicks off

Government has started work on the Bulawayo-Tsholotsho Road and will soon be working on the Bulawayo-Nkayi Road Project which has stuttered in the past two decades, Transport and Infrastructural Development minister Obert Mpofu - who is also a Zanu-PF politburo member - said while speaking at the party's Matabeleland North inter-district provincial congress in Lupane on Saturday.

"I think those from Tsholotsho have seen the graders on that road, and we will also be moving in to do the Bulawayo-Nkayi Road," he said. "Sanctions were hurting us."

Economic sanctions were imposed on Zimbabwe by her former colonial master, Britain and her Anglo-Saxon allies to punish it for embarking on a land reform programme in 2000 that was meant to correct the racially skewed land ownership patterns.

The 112-kilometre-long Bulawayo-Tsholotsho Road has become increasingly difficult to navigate and some public transport operators are reported to be shunning the road which is a strip and is littered with potholes while the widening of the Nkayi-Bulawayo Road which started more than two decades ago has been a "start-stop" kind of project.

Only 50 kilometres of the 158km Bulawayo-Nkayi Road has been done in the past two decades, with money that was meant for the project being diverted to other projects in other provinces.

Development of infrastructure such as roads is key to the success of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation blueprint.

Mpofu said government was committed to developing the province as evidenced by work at the Lupane State University and the provincial capital, Lupane.