ZIMBABWE ROAD RECONSTRUCTION PROJECTS
Zimbabwe’s road reconstruction and maintenance programs and other efforts by the Government to sort out transport infrastructure are attracting attention with a 10-member delegation from Zambia’s Parliament arriving yesterday for a five-day visit to see how this was done and done with internal funds.
The Zambian delegation is made up of that country’s Parliamentary Committee on Transport, Works, and Supply. During a courtesy call on Speaker of the National Assembly Advocate Jacob Mudenda. The Head of the delegation, Mr. Mubika Mubika, said Zimbabwe and Zambia share cordial relations and similar development aspirations.
Mr. Mubika said their visit would also focus on what role indigenous Zimbabweans were playing in the projects being carried out by Government.
“We are here to see the infrastructure and what role Parliament here does, so we will be taken around to see the infrastructure and to see how the locals here in Zimbabwe are given an opportunity in public procurement, to take part in Government business and how you are handling the small contractors.
“That is our business here. We also want to check and compare with what we are doing in Zambia,” Mr. Mubika said.
The delegation is expected to visit road construction, the expansion of the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, the Mbudzi Roundabout interchange, and the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare Highway and examine the road tolling system that is paying a lot of the road bills. They are expected to meet local contractors carrying out some of the projects.
Chairperson of the Zimbabwean Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructure Development, Cde Oscar Gorerino, said the Zambian parliamentary delegation’s visit will also focus on other parliamentary issues.
“They are here to appreciate what we are doing here in Zimbabwe and also you can see most of their issues they have raised were to do with how we are operating on infrastructural development and how we are operating in Parliament, as well as the way MPs are treated in parliament and issues to do with seniority and the responses that they get from the ministers,” said Cde Gorerino.