Harare-Beitbridge highway Zanu PF job: Mahofa

Source: Harare-Beitbridge highway Zanu PF job: Mahofa – DailyNews Live

STAFF WRITER      30 April 2017

HARARE – Masvingo Provincial Affairs minister Shuvai Mahofa has said only
Zanu PF supporters will be favoured in contract awarding for the
construction of the Harare-Beitbridge highway.

The call for domestic party preference in the public procurement process
for the project was tabled during  a recent Zanu PF Masvingo provincial
coordinating committee (PCC) meeting held at Victoria Primary School.

According to Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the project must start in
Masvingo near Chaka Growth Point in the first week of May under an
agreement with the Austrian contractor Geiger International.

“Recruitment of general labourers should be done through local Zanu PF
leadership, we need to screen and take our people only,” Mahofa said.

“District chairpersons should have lists of party cadres so that when the
programme starts, you are ready with the names of our youths.

“This is what we agreed as the leadership of the province.”

The highway is Zimbabwe’s busiest and most economically significant, and
is part of the North-South Corridor that directly links landlocked
Zimbabwe and Zambia.

The project is expected to take up to two years.

Transport minister Jorum Gumbo told the Senate earlier this month that the
entire Beitbridge-Chirundu project will cost $2,1billion.

“It is a main artery road which is very valid in our economic situation.
As a result, we have divided the development project into six sectors and
each sector will be given 100 kilometres long to work on that road.
Because, we feel that if we give many companies, each one of them will be
responsible for a particular potion, we can complete this job within two
years,” he said.

China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC), a subsidiary of China
Communications Construction Co Ltd, will partner Austria’s Geiger
International to upgrade and add more lanes to the 900 km highway from
Beitbridge on the border with South Africa to Chirundu on the Zambian
border.

Gumbo said the cash-strapped government has had to borrow money from
outside to bankroll the almost $1bn deal.