Bulawayo residents have accused a South African engineering company, Group Five, of allegedly abandoning a road resurfacing project along Old Esigodini Road near Matsheumhlope suburb.
The company launched the project in April this year and pulled out hardly a week later, inviting the wrath of residents who complained that the resurfaced stretch was now “uneven and uncomfortable to drive on”.
Retired Colonel Ray Ncube, a Matsheumhlope resident, said they were shocked when the company withdrew its machinery before completion of the project.
“After a week, they removed their equipment without resurfacing the road and left altogether. “The road is now uneven and not comfortable to drive on,” he said.
But Group Five project director Ham Coetzee dispelled fears they had abandoned the project, saying they had stopped construction work to assess the resurfaced portion before they could continue with the project.
“It’s not abandonment. We were doing a trial with the City of Bulawayo,” he said.
“What we were doing was an assessment of the road. We want to see how that portion of the road would hold under traffic and under certain conditions.
“We will definitely be getting back to it and complete it.”
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Group Five, who won a contract to dualise the country’s roads, offered to upgrade the stretch to test-run a recycler, an environmentally friendly road rehabilitation vehicle.
