Sixty pre-stressed beams to be installed at Mbudzi Interchange cast by a local contractor, Fossils Contracting, in Mount Hampden are now complete and being moved to the site.
The installation of the beams at the bridges is planned to start in a few weeks' time. The interchange is scheduled to be finished this year.
Formerly Mbudzi roundabout, the traffic circle was characterised by serious jams, especially during morning and evening peak hours as most vehicles would have to go two thirds of the way around the roundabout, basically blocking those on other roads from even accessing it.
A visit to the site yesterday showed that of the 60 beams, 10 had already been transported to Mbudzi Interchange site. Around noon, a haulage truck arrived at the Fossil Contracting plant and loaded another beam.
A worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the beams were of top notch. "Our engineers were trained in South Africa on the casting of the pre-stressed beams which are of top quality compared to ordinary beams.
"Some of the beams weigh an average 40 tonnes each. For bridge number 1 the size is about 23,65 metres length and for bridge 3 is 22,35m," said the employee.
Speaking during a recent tour by legislators from the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructural Development, Mbudzi Interchange Resident Engineer Emmanuel Dube said work was progressing well.
"We have structural work which is 13 bridges on the interchange and two bridges on Amalinda Drive and Harare Drive on peripheral work," he said.
Of the 13 bridges planned for the interchange, nine are almost complete while work on decks is in progress on the other four.
"In terms of the earthworks, you can see the amount of earth we have moved. It's just under 900 000 cubic metres of a total of one million cubic metres that we have to move here," he said.
Tensor Systems, Fossil Contracting and Masimba Construction formed the Tefoma Construction consortium to build the interchange, the most ambitious and complex piece of road engineering in the country.
