Zimbabwe's major highway network is being upgraded and largely rebuilt with work now able to proceed faster as the country's private sector builds up its resources and efficiencies.
The first major use of a private company was in 2012 to 2014 when the main east-west highway, Mutare-Harare-Bulawayo-Plumtree, was redone.
The contractor was from South Africa, Group Five International, in a joint venture with Zinara, the Zimbabwe roads funding agency, and the use of a South African contractor brought in finance, backed by the road tolls on that long stretch of highway.
Problems did arise, but the Second Republic efficiently sorted these out both through its major reform of Zinara, which meant most of the toll money was actually available for roads once the endemic corruption at all levels was eliminated and a far more efficient administration was put in place.
Later a new system of tolling was introduced, with higher tolls on those highways that had been rebuilt, and transporters and motorists have not complained about paying more when they are guaranteed good roads.
The lower tolls apply to those highways where work is in progress. This sorts out the finances, but the Second Republic appreciates that people want to see results before they pay.
Initially a similar scheme was tested for the main north-south highway, Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare-Chirundu.
Another foreign company appeared to be interested, but after a lot a talk and zero action it became apparent that all this approach had produced were delays.
On the other hand, several Zimbabwean contractors had in fact done most of the roadwork on the Mutare-Plumtree highway and were confident they could handle the next stage.
The Government decided to switch to local firms and see how they could perform, and has been extremely pleased with the results, which have resulted in lower costs once the extra external layer was removed.
Government itself had to manage the finances, with the revenue coming via Zinara from the road tolls on this stretch, but no large capital sum in place. So the work was staged, as the money flowed in the next set of contracts were signed.
In one new development, the growing muscle of the local contractors allowed them to form a consortium with financial backing to build the Mbudzi interchange.
Again there were links between the designated tollgates and the interchange and Harare bypass road construction.
In all this construction, while the contractors do the work, Government technical experts have to approve the designs, lay down the standards that must be met, and they do the final quality-control approval, with contractors who do not meet the grade being made to redo the work at their own expense, and presumably if there is some persistent deficiency having to dropped from Government contracts.
We are now moving up a scale, with the Cabinet approving a public-private partnership with the largest Zimbabwean road contractor, Bitumen World, to handle the western major north-south highway, the Beitbridge-Bulawayo-Victoria Falls Road as a design-build-operate-transfer contract.
This is another major jump in the capability and capacity of the Zimbabwean private sector and the growing partnership and trust between the Government and the private sector.
The original concept a decade ago would have been to use a foreign company; now we have our own with proven work done. So we can move forward.
This time, for a start, the taxes and profits of the arrangement stay in Zimbabwe, and are not collected by another country and not banked there.
Presumably the costing in the proposals has been examined in detail, and the Government has worked out what is the best arrangement and best value for Zimbabweans.
We already know, from the pure contracting arrangements, that the Zimbabwean firms, being based here with their equipment and staff here, can compete successfully on cost with foreign companies, and extending this continues to build that sector.
Perhaps if Zimbabwe was not hindered by sanctions on global development funds, we could have gone a different route, a straight construction contract, but this sort of major arrangement between the Government and a major Zimbabwean company might also have been the best route even with that sort of finance.
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The announcement from the Cabinet suggested that the new deal would allow work to start almost immediately and then progress faster.
At the same time the top national contractors are continuing their work on the Harare-Chirundu stretch of the other north-south highway, having done the Beitbridge-Harare stretch, under the Government contracts arrangement, so we could have both finished at roughly the same time.
This sort of close co-operation between the Government and our private sector helps everyone, and one extra result should be the ability of our best private companies to tender for work outside Zimbabwe, allowing them to continue growing as they complete major work inside Zimbabwe.
At the same time as the major national highway grid, the Government is upgrading the intermediate link highways, some of which are quite long and all of which are necessary, so there is growing work for all in the industry, and even opportunities for new companies to enter the business and prove their worth as they build up contracting experience and prove they can meet standards. We do not want to see cartels controlling the industry so newcomers need to be encouraged.
