ZANU PF Tshabalala-Pelandaba legislator Joseph Tshuma has questioned why rural roads are being neglected during the ongoing road rehabilitation and maintenance exercise.
Government is rehabilitating major roads especially in the capital Harare where a Southern African Development Community summit will be held.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2021 declared the country’s roads a state of disaster owing to years of neglect.
During a question and answer session in Parliament recently, Tshuma demanded answers from Transport and Infrastructural Development deputy minister, Joshua Sacco, as to why rural roads are neglected in the ongoing road rehabilitation exercise.
Tshuma said the majority of rural roads were in very bad shape and not trafficable.
“What are the plans of the Ministry of Transport on the rehabilitating of Galiva-Chireya-Nembudziya Road which has deteriorated to a bad state,” Tshuma asked.
In response, Sacco said his ministry was responsible for maintaining major roads.
“The Ministry of Transport is responsible for maintaining the country’s major highways and trunk roads that connect with these highways,” Sacco said.
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“In light of Galiva-Chireya-Nembudziya Road, it is under the purview of the Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (RIDA) not our ministry,” Sacco said.
He said roads fell under different authorities.
“The roads are different; we are pleading with parliamentarians so that they understand whether a road belongs to council or falls under District Development Fund (DDF) or Ministry of Transport if we have different responsible authorities,” he said.
Sacco, however, said government was in the process of buying road maintenance equipment for RIDA and rural district councils.
“We have asked the government to buy equipment so that our councils get necessary equipment to repair the roads,” he said.
“RIDA was once DDF and by then it did not have capacity to repair roads. The government gave it money through the fiscus so that it would be able to buy and repair equipment to construct roads under the second republic.”
Zimbabweans have expressed concern over shoddy road maintenance works being done by contracted companies.
Government has threatened to blacklist the companies.
