The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube in Binga
REHABILITATION of the Binga air strip to meet international standards is set to start next month with the contractor having been identified as the Second Republic continues to deliver on its promise not to leave behind any community in terms of development.
Since coming to power in 2017, President Mnangagwa has been at the forefront in terms of driving economic growth and development in the Matabeleland region and the country at large. President Mnangagwa also emphasised his Government’s commitment to developing Binga District which for a number of years has largely been lagging behind.
President Mnangagwa
The Second Republic’s interventions under the stewardship of President Mnangagwa have been consistent with the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1), continued to be centred on scaling up the implementation of key projects with priority being on completing the ones, which had stalled for years.
Speaking during a tour of projects under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme 2 and the District Development Fund (DDF), Permanent Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet responsible for DDF, Mr Christopher Shumba revealed that they were now finalising the paperwork with the identified contractor, Bitumen World with the major facelift works set to start next month.
He said the Government was working round the clock to ensure that no community in the country was left behind in terms of development.
“This is one of the air strips we are working on as DDF. We are going to put an asphalt overlay, with a 40-millimetre thickness. We have already awarded the contract to Bitumen World and we are finalising the negotiations with them next (this) week.
Once we complete the paperwork, they will immediately move in to do the overlay. We will also improve the markings because the current ones are outdated, so we are going to put new international standard markings. It is our hope that it will increase the landings here from the current two landings a day,” said Mr Shumba.
He called upon the Binga Rural District Council to ensure that they emulate Government’s position of spreading all projects across the district and ensuring that no place is left behind.
“Let’s spread all projects across the district, all communities must not be left behind in terms of development. Let us show even the remotest parts that Government has not forgotten about them. Let us build schools all over the district so that we can then come in to construct the roads and ensure that these communities are connected to the rest of the world,” he said.
On the state of the district’s roads under ERRP, Mr Shumba said he was happy that the district was doing its best in ensuring that the road situation is addressed.
“I am happy that you are trying your best as I see you already have bought some plant and equipment for road rehabilitation. My call is that you now use all your allocated funds and in the instance where you did not get all your ERRP funds for 2021, follow-up with the necessary authorities and ensure that those funds are disbursed. What excites me is that the RDC has also worked on roads leading to chief’s houses and other key facilities. Let us work on all the major roads projects and ensure convenience for our villagers,” Mr Shumba said.
Binga RDC district engineer, Zibusiso Nyoni said last year the district was allocated $54,2 million of which $27,7 million was disbursed.
“It is unfortunate that we got a disbursement of half of what we were supposed to receive, if we had got the full disbursement it would have gone a long way in completing all the projects that were identified under the facility. For this year, as at 20 May we were allocated $58 million of which just $20,2 million has been disbursed which represents a percentage disbursement of 35 percent. Our major challenge to date has been this issue of inadequate allocation, hyper-inflation and the procurement of fuel in foreign currency,” said Eng Nyoni.
More than 2 000 urban and rural roads stretching over 10 000 kilometres will undergo reconstruction under the ongoing Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme 2 (ERRP2) this year. The Government has set aside $17 billion for the roadworks programme, which will be undertaken primarily by the Department of Roads (DoR), local authorities and the DDF. Much of the works will entail rehabilitation of damaged roads, asphalt overlay, pothole patching and resealing.
