MASVINGO – The long-awaited $987m dualisation of Harare-Beitbridge Highway will start before the end of this month after Geiger, the contracted company’s engineers descended on Masvingo yesterday (Wednesday) and inspected three sites from which they will choose one for their headquarters.
The four member delegation was led by Dr Cuthbert Mashanda, the country representative and it held a meeting with the provincial roads engineer Arnold Jeme, Masvingo City engineer Tawanda Gozo, Enerst Geza the town planning technician and Godwin Chipika from the Provincial Administrator’s office.
Officials also present during the tour were from Zhejiang Bayong Highway Engineering Ltd from China, the company that is going to do the actual construction.
Dr Mashanda told The Mirror in an interview during the tour of the sites that dualisation will start before the end of this month.
He said that Geiger will put up its headquarters in Masvingo and one of the reasons for the visit was to inspect three sites offered in the town for the company’s headquarters.
The company would need 20 hectares of land for the headquarters and the three selected places are an open piece of land next to Exor Station, some 2km away from the City Centre along Beitbridge – Masvingo Highway.
The second site is in WestView industrial area on an open space along Bulawayo Road just before Steelmakers and the third option is also along Masvingo Bulawayo Road a few hundred metres away from the first site and just after Steelmakers.
Dr Mashanda said dualisation work will start as soon as the company chooses the site for its headquarters.
“Equipment will start flowing in once we have chosen the site for our headquarters and we expect dualisation to start before the end of this month,” said Dr Mashanda.
There will be smaller sites for the company at Chivi, Mwenezi and Beitbridge with four hectares each.
He gave The Mirror a pictorial glimpse of the project and said that there would be three interchanges (flyovers) along the highway. There will be a flyover at Mbudzi in Harare, a second one in Masvingo at the junction of Bulawayo Masvingo Road and Masvingo Harare Road.
The third flyover will be in Beitbridge at the junction of Beitbridge-Masvingo Road and Beitbridge Bulawayo Road.
There will be 40 state of the art bridges along the highway, said Dr Mashanda.
The construction of the Harare-Beitbridge highway was commissioned by former President Mugabe in May 2017.
