By Patience Gondo
BEITBRIDGE’s recently graded roads weren washed away by heavy rains that fell during the week and motorists are back on deteriorated conditions roads were in before the maintenance works.
Several roads levelled and resurfaced with gravel have developed potholes and muddy patches again after the rains, raising concerns among residents about the durability of the road rehabilitation efforts.
Town Clerk Loud Ramakgapola told Ziyah News network that the local authority is currently assessing the extent of the damage before taking further action.
“We are currently doing an assessment of the damages done on our roads to see the extent of the damage. Once we have assessed we will be dumping gravel and grading,” said Ramakgapola.
He said while grading and graveling will address the immediate problem, the long term solution lies in upgrading key roads to tarred standards.
“The long term solution will obviously be to tar the roads, particularly main roads. Our target is Shuleshule Rank Road which traverses the bigger part of the old part of town. This road needs to be tarred,” he said.
Ramakgapola said some areas being serviced by private developers are already seeing progress in road infrastructure.
“In areas being serviced by developers, tarring is ongoing and soon the area will be modern with good roads,” he said.
However, some residents believe repeated grading of roads without permanent surfacing is ineffective, especially during the rainy season when the gravel is easily washed away.
Ward 3 resident Charles Ngulube said the council needs to prioritise lasting solutions instead of temporary repairs.
“We hope the council comes up with a permanent solution sooner to these roads because gravel roads are expensive to maintain and appears a waste of resources. When the rains come, everything is washed away and we go back to the same situation,” He said.
Kudakwashe Maware a resident the situation has left many roads difficult to use, particularly in residential areas where motorists and pedestrians are now navigating muddy surfaces and growing potholes only weeks after the latest round of grading.
Meanwhile the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA) has said it disbursed over ZWG350 million to local authorities for road maintenance in 2025, but the lack of accountability by some councils has raised concerns over the utilisation of the funds.
ZINARA Chief Executive Officer Nkosinathi Ncube made this revelation during an appearance before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport on Wednesday.
Ncube told legislators that ZINARA collected ZWG12.5 billion in 2025, with ZWG9billion distributed to road authorities and various government agencies responsible for road maintenance.
Local authorities received a total of ZWG358 million for road maintenance, but it emerged during the meeting that some diverted the funds to other uses and failed to provide accountability.
Ncube said future disbursements for 2026 would depend on whether road authorities accounted for previous allocations.
“Road Authorities received ZWG1.1 billion of the budgeted funds or part of the collected revenue which was 97% of the budget.
“High-impact projects got ZWG 5.6 million. Provincial local authorities received funds as follows: Harare City received ZWG121 million for road maintenance projects, Masvingo ZWG100 million, Mashonaland West ZWG84 million, Mashonaland Central ZWG20 million, Midlands ZWG20 million, and Mashonaland East ZWG13 million,” Ncube said.
It is not clear how much Beitbridge received but the roads surfaced with ZINARA funding but eyebrows have been raised over the quality of the surfacing.