HARARE - Harare City Council needs about $2 billion to rehabilitate and maintain its roads, a University of Zimbabwe research paper says.
The $2 billion will cover the cost of rehabilitation and maintenance of roads, street lights, pavements, traffic lights, kerbs, culverts and drains.
The paper, titled “The Growth and Problems of the City”, blames the deplorable state of roads to failure to do periodic maintenance.
“However, every road needs periodic maintenance, that is after three years, five years or
seven years of construction,” the paper says. “Most of the city’s roads have not had such maintenance over the last 15 to 20 years due to economic challenges.
“Most roads need total reconstruction. The on-going pothole patching is a temporary measure to allow the city to source reconstruction funding.”
Early this year, the city fathers told the Daily News they needed approximately
$600 million to fix the pothole-riddled road network that is 5 000km long, of which 80 percent is tarred.
The rehabilitation of Harare’s road network first needs a road condition survey which the research estimated will cost about $2 million.
“Road reconstruction costs $600 per metre in the CBD and about $250 per metre in the suburban areas,” the report says. “The bulk of the road infrastructure was constructed alongside the city’s suburbs.”