THE government's sluggish pace in fixing and upgrading the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls road is depressing, given the high number of traffic fatalities that have been reported and the importance of that highway to the tourism industry.
This week, a Toyota Quantum carrying 19 passengers collided head-on with a truck near the 113-kilometre mark on the highway, resulting in four fatalities and 13 injuries.
Witnesses claim that the truck tried to escape a large pothole by swerving into the oncoming traffic, causing a crash.
The bad condition of that road has resulted in several deaths. It is quite narrow and full of potholes.
For instance, last year in November, two people died on the spot while 10 sustained serious injuries after an Inter Africa bus overturned at Insuza along the road.
During the previous month of the same year, a CAG bus veered off the road and landed on its side, injuring 40 people.
The highway claimed many lives last year, including two members of InsimbiZezhwane.
In 2022, it claimed the life of Chief Mabhikwa.
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But despite all this, the road remains unfixed.
To make matters worse, the road is a key tourism link. It leads to the country’s prime tourism destination and connects Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa through Bulawayo. It is widely used by self-drivers visiting the destination.
Players in the tourism industry have been calling for urgent rehabilitation of all key roads, including the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highway to no avail.
A poor road network, they warned, will undermine efforts to boost the tourism industry. Self-driving domestic tourists require a robust road network to enable them to travel without incidents.
Why the government is not responding to this call genuinely surprises us. We have death traps for highways; how are we going to encourage tourism?
If this issue is not taken seriously by the administration, visitors will soon withdraw.
According to the Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe, good roads are key in the absence of air transport. There are currently insufficient dependable aviation services to a number of Zimbabwean tourist locations.
As a result, all highways leading to the nation's tourism attractions — Kariba, Great Zimbabwe, Binga, and Victoria Falls, to name a few — need to be upgraded by the government.
We urge the government to fix and upgrade the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls road before numerous fatalities occur or visitors begin to avoid Victoria Falls, which is home to some of the most breath-taking waterfalls on earth.
