News / National
Beitbridge - Chirundu highway rehab to go ahead
17 Mar 2015 at 03:13hrs | Views
THE government says it will go ahead with the rehabilitation of the Beitbridge-Chirundu road despite a 13-year long court battle that has stalled the widening of the country's busiest highway.
ZimHighway Consortium, a grouping of civil engineering firms took the government to court after the tender board unceremoniously cancelled a tender that was issued to the consortium in 2002 to rehabilitate the road.
The matter is yet to be finalised by the courts.
Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Obert Mpofu told a gathering during a road authorities workshop in Bulawayo last week the government had decided to go ahead with works on the project while waiting for the ruling on the court case.
"On the issue of Beitbridge-Chirundu Road, I should have started that road had it not been for other impediments to that activity. This is one project that's on top of our priorities but when we tried to identify partners to do that, we were faced with some litigation from some interested parties, which has derailed the execution of that development. The President has directed that we do it ourselves," Minister Mpofu said.
He bemoaned the poor state of the Beitbridge-Chirundu highway and the spate of road traffic accidents along the route that continue to claim lives each year.
"We've lost lives due to its poor state but some people decided to delay that process through some court action. We've been directed to do it on our own because action won't take place unless done by the government," he added.
A Bulawayo-based legal expert Matshobana Ncube of Phulu and Ncube Partners yesterday said unless an interdict was available, there was nothing that would stop the government from going ahead with that project on its own or awarding the tender to any other party.
"If the interdict isn't there, what these guys can do is to simply sue the government for damages they've incurred," he said.
Minister Mpofu also said the rehabilitation of the Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport road would be done this year once work on the Harare International Airport road was completed.
Meanwhile, the minister said the government was working to tie up some loose ends with funders to unlock funding for the rehabilitation of the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ).
Last year, Mpofu announced that the government was negotiating for a loan of up to $700 million from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) to fund the rehabilitation of NRZ.
He said the bank had agreed in principle to bail out the troubled parastatal viewed as a critical entity in the overall economic turnaround.
ZimHighway Consortium, a grouping of civil engineering firms took the government to court after the tender board unceremoniously cancelled a tender that was issued to the consortium in 2002 to rehabilitate the road.
The matter is yet to be finalised by the courts.
Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Obert Mpofu told a gathering during a road authorities workshop in Bulawayo last week the government had decided to go ahead with works on the project while waiting for the ruling on the court case.
"On the issue of Beitbridge-Chirundu Road, I should have started that road had it not been for other impediments to that activity. This is one project that's on top of our priorities but when we tried to identify partners to do that, we were faced with some litigation from some interested parties, which has derailed the execution of that development. The President has directed that we do it ourselves," Minister Mpofu said.
He bemoaned the poor state of the Beitbridge-Chirundu highway and the spate of road traffic accidents along the route that continue to claim lives each year.
"We've lost lives due to its poor state but some people decided to delay that process through some court action. We've been directed to do it on our own because action won't take place unless done by the government," he added.
A Bulawayo-based legal expert Matshobana Ncube of Phulu and Ncube Partners yesterday said unless an interdict was available, there was nothing that would stop the government from going ahead with that project on its own or awarding the tender to any other party.
"If the interdict isn't there, what these guys can do is to simply sue the government for damages they've incurred," he said.
Minister Mpofu also said the rehabilitation of the Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport road would be done this year once work on the Harare International Airport road was completed.
Meanwhile, the minister said the government was working to tie up some loose ends with funders to unlock funding for the rehabilitation of the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ).
Last year, Mpofu announced that the government was negotiating for a loan of up to $700 million from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) to fund the rehabilitation of NRZ.
He said the bank had agreed in principle to bail out the troubled parastatal viewed as a critical entity in the overall economic turnaround.
Source - chronicle
