Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. The government has rolled out a countrywide street lighting programme with a pilot project being carried out in Harare where the installation of 1 202 new lights is currently underway.
The project was initiated by President Mnangagwa and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame and is expected to cover about 35 kilometres of Harare’s major road network.
Some roads that have since been lit up include Seke, Julius Nyerere, Joshua Nqabuko Nkomo (Airport), and Samora Machel, according to the Chronicle.
Under the ongoing exercise:
i). there will also be the removal of the old existing cables and the refurbishment of old street lighting poles.
ii). there is going to be an installation of a back office with a management system that monitors the performance of street lights by controlling the switching on, lighting levels and dimming of the lights. The system also enables the monitoring of performance and power consumption. It also picks up faults or vandalism simultaneously as it happens in real-time from the back office.
Permanent Secretary for Harare Metropolitan Provincial Affairs and Devolution Mr Tafadzwa Muguti said for the first time in almost two decades, Harare is now seeing progress under the Second Republic. He said:
President, thank you for your engagement and re-engagement efforts which have brought about the partnership between Zimbabwe and Rwanda.
We will now start seeing, after 15 years, our roads having street lighting. Indeed, this is a smart city agenda that you are championing.
In August 2022, the City of Harare’s acting head of mechanical and electrical engineering, Calvin Chigariro said the project was being carried out in partnership with ZESA (local power utility) and Rwanda Energy Group.
ZESA’s Stakeholder Relations Department said the Government engaged the government of Rwanda for cooperation in various sectors including energy, it said in a statement on Friday.
ZESA said this led to the signing of the inter-Utility Memorandum of Agreement between the Rwanda Energy Group (REG) and ZESA Holdings in which various areas of cooperation were agreed upon.
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