News / Local
BCC seeks $11m for roads rehab
20 May 2021 at 01:42hrs | Views
BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) says it is planning to borrow about $11 million to carry out emergency road rehabilitation.
This was revealed by the BCC director of engineering services Simela Dube during a virtual meeting with journalists on Tuesday.
"On the road infrastructure...the rest of the roads are in poor to fair condition.
"The network resembles fair to poor conditions, hence the potholes that we currently have on the ground.
"The network needs almost $700 million to resuscitate and an investment of US$15 million per annum," Dube said.
"On the funding for the current year, the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) gave us US$15 million.
"We have the emergency road rehabilitation programme phase two for which Zinara was supposed to give us $820 million.
"We had a meeting with the permanent secretary (Transport ministry) and the figure has been reduced to $654 million. The city currently intends to borrow almost US$11 million to deal with the road network."
He said emergency road works were currently in progress along Fife Street.
Asked why council resorted to filling up potholes with sand instead of channelling the money towards a permanent solution, Dube said the council used gravel to fill the potholes because accessing proper material was expensive.
He said for the time being, they were filling up the potholes with gravel because motorists were complaining about the poor state of roads, adding that the huge cost in sourcing materials required for road upgrades was beyond the reach of council.
This was revealed by the BCC director of engineering services Simela Dube during a virtual meeting with journalists on Tuesday.
"On the road infrastructure...the rest of the roads are in poor to fair condition.
"The network resembles fair to poor conditions, hence the potholes that we currently have on the ground.
"The network needs almost $700 million to resuscitate and an investment of US$15 million per annum," Dube said.
"On the funding for the current year, the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) gave us US$15 million.
"We have the emergency road rehabilitation programme phase two for which Zinara was supposed to give us $820 million.
"We had a meeting with the permanent secretary (Transport ministry) and the figure has been reduced to $654 million. The city currently intends to borrow almost US$11 million to deal with the road network."
He said emergency road works were currently in progress along Fife Street.
Asked why council resorted to filling up potholes with sand instead of channelling the money towards a permanent solution, Dube said the council used gravel to fill the potholes because accessing proper material was expensive.
He said for the time being, they were filling up the potholes with gravel because motorists were complaining about the poor state of roads, adding that the huge cost in sourcing materials required for road upgrades was beyond the reach of council.
Source - newsday
