Worst Road Network

Masvingo province is mocked for suffering from drought every second rainy season, an unshakable joke since the problem of rain supply in the province is there for all to see – what with their wide tarred road network that is favourite home to almost every vehicle.
But try to take a trip to Gokwe in the neighbouring province of Midlands, which – with its white gold known as cotton, and several mines – is virtually a land of plenty.
But Gokwe’s envious riches are well and truly hidden, right beyond the back of Zimbawe's latent opulence. You will not get to Gokwe - not on their roads; hell no - not unless you are airborne; or otherwise made of some superman, batman, spiderman; or any such superhuman stuff.
You could be asked to describe the road network of Gokwe district in a sentence; well, I have a tip: swabs of cotton hanging onto thorns and leaves attached to dusty trees either side of dusty, sandy and/or stony, sometimes fragmented bituminous strips on a treacherous terrain that has become a collective hate object of drivers in the country.
For, not only do the roads test your driving skills, but they would also put your patience, endurance and cursing impulses under severe scrutiny.
Yet, this vast expanse of land called Gokwe, traversing the area between Nkayi to the south and Hurungwe to the north, is home to about two hundred police officers tasked with the mandate to keep crime in that district under lock and key.
Besides the haulage trucks crumpling under the cumbersome weight of cotton bales, NGO 4x4s spanning the area on their various humanitarian missions and a few other vehicles, the mode of transport of choice in Gokwe is the animal drawn cart – popularly known as the ngoro or inxola.
Not that the police in Gokwe resort to these extreme transport measures, but then they have to make do with an on again/off again fleet of two Mitsubishi trucks and a defender.
And that is only to speak for the district headquarters, CID Gokwe and Gokwe Police station. At Nembudziya police, most people have forgotten when their state of the art Isuzu broke down before it even hit the 20,000 mark on the mileometer. Neither do they recall where its remains are.
“The car broke down a long time ago,” said a source at the transport section in Gokwe.
“It did not even last a year on these local roads.”
Its twin, the one allocated to Manoti Police station for the latter’s daily police duties, fared better though, maybe because it did not have to negotiate the nonnegotiable Mavhirivhi curves found at the Mapfungautsi Range on the way to Nembudziya. Manoti exactly in the opposite direction and, with no hills worth mentioning and stones almost non-existent, it was only logical that the Manoti vehicle stayed longer on the road.
But still, our news crew found it reposed on boulders at the garage, its hind tyres off. While Nembudziya is impassable with its sharp curving roads that are a no go area during the rainy season, the one leading to Manoti was blessed with sand – so much of it that we had to disembark the vehicle we were travelling in to push it out of the sandy soil.
With this situation, Officer-In-Charge CID Nembudziya could afford to crack one: “With roads like ours, what robber dares to make a heist in our area? There are simply no escape routes!”
Funnily enough, the way to Manoti has a 500m long tarmac stretch that seemed like it fell from the sky to cover Mbumbusi Bridge in the Bopoma area. The bridge has become a popular tourist resort for schools from surrounding areas, with authorities taking their children “see the tarmac.”
Nembudziya also has a like stretch of bitumen that just starts out of the blue from the Kuwirirana business centre and last about 3km or so. After that, it is one bumpy, rocky ride after another – an obtaining situation that spells doom for Nembudziya officers.
“We take our accused persons to Gokwe Magisitrate’s Court,” said Officer-In-Charge Nembudziya police, Chief Insp Kota Mhike.
“Normally, it is only 72km from here to Gokwe, but this route is the one that has to overcome the Mavhirivhi test first, and no one in their right mind wilfully takes that road.
“As a result we are forced to take buses that take us to Kadoma first, and from there we seek other transportation means that will take us to Gokwe.”
It might be impossible to imagine, and we got dog-tired from using the gonyeti as a source of transport (sometimes we had to trudge the ardous hikes), but this actually is the daily life for Gokwe police officers.