The Sunday News
Sharon Chimenya, Masvingo Correspondent
The Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme is progressing well in Masvingo with the local authority having completed 80 percent of their planned work, it has been learnt.
Masvingo City Council has to date received $87 million from the road rehabilitation programme and is optimistic of completing the road works before the onset of the rainy season.
Acting City Engineer Kudzaishe Mbetu said that they are working on completing the first and the second phase.
“With the current disbursement we managed to do 80 percent of what we had planned and we are left with 20 percent of uncompleted works which is to be completed before we go to Phase 3. We received the funds for Phase 1 and 2. Phase 1 was pothole patching, Phase 2 was resealing and we are now preparing to go to Phase 3 which is reconstruction.”
Town Clerk, Engineer Edward Mukaratirwa, said the local authority received $22 million for in house works and $65 million for the payment of the contractors.
“For the ERRP 2, we received $22 million through the council accounts for the work we are doing as in house and we also have an excess of $65 million in terms of the interim payment certificate that have been paid to the contractors that we have engaged under the programme. So we can safely say we have accessed in excess of $87 million from ERRP.
“As earlier alluded to by the acting city engineer in terms of the physical completion of the works we are now around 80 percent. Our workers as council and the contractors are still on the ground and we are optimistic that before the onset of the rainy season we should have completed all the planned works,” he said.
