South African construction company Group Five says work on the rehabilitation of the 800 km stretch of the Plumtree–Mutare highway, in Zimbabwe, should be completed by the end of this year.

Giving evidence before the Parliamentary Porfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastruc-ture Development, Group Five projects director for Zimbabwe Ham Coetze said the company had completed the rehabilitation of 712 km.

“We are targeting to complete all works by mid-December, but the installations from Goromonzi to Gweru might flow into January and February next year,” he said.

The project had been delayed through a lack of funds owing to disagreements between the government of Zimbabwe and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), which provided $200-million in financing for the project.

Coetze said the disagreements led to delays in the disbursement of funds and that caused unplanned work stoppages.

The road project, which began in mid-2012, is a joint venture between the Zimbabwe National Roads Authority (Zinara), with a 70% stake, and Group Five International, with 30%.

Coetze told Parliament that the project entailed 150 km of rehabilitation, 250 km of shoulder ceiling widening and 423 km of resur- facing on the Plumtree–Harare and the Harare–Mutare highways. It also included the installation of nine toll plazas at a cost of $3-million each. Four of the new toll plazas were already operational.

He said Group Five had complied with govern- ment’s indigenisation requirements by sub-contracting to local companies. However, he said the company had been forced to cut its workforce by half from the 2 000 in 2012 to 1 078 owing to delays in the disbursement of funds.

Responding to allegations that the company could have done substandard work, since it had not built the road to the same standards as the Gauteng freeways, Coetze said the entire funding of $200-million would have been sufficient to build only 40 km if the project had been on a par with South African roads.

“With $200-million and a replication of the Gauteng freeways, we would have done about 40 km of the road. An 800 km stretch would cost about $3-billion,” Coetze said.

The Zimbabwe government has started rehabilitation programmes for all major roads across the country following a decade of neglect.

In January, it floated tenders for the rehabili-tation of 16 major roads which have outlived their life spans. It attracted 23 bids from local, regional and international companies.

Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure Development Munesushe Munodawafa said all 16 projects would be undertaken in line with the ‘build, operate and transfer’ model.

According to African Development Bank esti-mates, Zimbabwe needs at least $10-billion to rehabilitate its trunk road network.