The Kwekwe-Gokwe Highway or the R84-7 Highway is an all-weather bitumen macadam highway in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

running from

Kwekwe Kwekwe ( ), known until 1983 as Que Que, is a city in the Midlands province of central Zimbabwe. The city has a population of 119,863 within the city limits, as of the 2022 census, making it the 7th-largest city in Zimbabwe and the second-most p ...

Gokwe The Gokwe Region consists of the land in the area around Gokwe centre that was formerly under the control of the hangweanguage people, a Shona-speaking group, which lay in the northern part of the Midlands province of northwestern Zimbabwe, and i ...

passing through

Zhombe Zhombe (also known as Jombe) is a rural communal area in Kwekwe District, Midlands Province, Zimbabwe. It is an area of mixed Shona and Northern Ndebele People. It lies along the Mnyathi border line between Midlands and Mashonaland Provinc ...

. As a trunk road it is officially designated as the P11 Highway. It is from Kwekwe to Gokwe but the highway which branches off from the A5 (Harare-Bulawayo Highway) is , a 1-hour-50-minute drive on average.

Management

The Zimbabwe National Road Administration ( ZINARA), a government department under the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Infrastructural Development, oversees the highway.

Background

In the 1973 Automobile Association national roadmap, the Kwekwe–Gokwe road (then Que Que–Gokwe road) was a gravel one for about 99% of its present length. Only of the old Gokwe road was asphalt surface from Kwekwe.

Reconstruction

The former gravel road was expanded in width and tarred from 31 January 1986 to 31 March 1991.

Operations

The original plan was to construct a carriageway with two

shoulders The human shoulder is made up of three bones: the clavicle (collarbone), the scapula (shoulder blade), and the humerus (upper arm bone) as well as associated muscles, ligaments and tendons. The articulations between the bones of the shoulder mak ...

. The road is however with 2 shoulders constructed according to the revised plan of 1986.

Bridges

From

the road passes over various rivers with standard bridges. The rivers are Kwekwe River, Rhino River, Chimwamombe River, Sesombe River, Mandombe River, Somalala River, Ngazimbi River, Zhombe River, Gwenzi River, Sehozana River, Little Sehozana River, Ufafi River and the Ngondoma River. There are no sizable rivers on the

side across the highway until after the

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

Feeder roads

Luveve-Donjane Road

Luveve-Donjane Road branches westwards, passes through Tiger Reef gold mine and stretches 48.3 km, a 42 minutes drive to Mushangi Shopping Center in Donjane joining the Somalala-Sidakeni Road there. This is the shortest route from

to Zhombe East, yet it is the slowest, as it is all gravel with a number of unprotected small bridges. However, there is one big bridge across the Sesombe River.

Luveve-Silobela Road

Luveve-Nkayi Road is a paved road officially called P8 Highway. It branches left at the same place Luveve-Donjane Road branches right. Luveve-Nkayi Road is also known as Kwekwe-Nkayi Road, but the road actually begins from the Kwekwe-Gokwe Highway at Luveve crossroads well outside

. The road has one big bridge across

Gweru River Gweru River (known as Gwelo River until 1982) is a river in Midlands Province of Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bo ...

near Loreto Mission before reaching Crossroads District Service Center. The road feeds

Silobela Silobela is an agricultural village in Kwekwe District in the Midlands Province of Zimbabwe. It is located about west of Kwekwe town, north-west of Gweru town, and bordering Nkayi on the west. Background Most of the inhabitants of Silobela ...

and Nkayi, and from Nkayi, it continues as P9 Road to join the Victoria Falls Bulawayo Highway.

Somalala–Sidakeni Road

Somalala–Sidakeni Road (R84-103), popularly known as Zhombe East Road, is a 46 km long gravel road, connecting Kwekwe-Gokwe Highway and the Kadoma-Gokwe-via-Empress Road. It branches right from the Kwekwe-Gokwe Highway at just past the 50 km peg from

. Zhombe East Road feeds Donjane, Bhamala, Totororo, and Sidakeni. There is a District Development Fund roads division deport at Mushangi Business Center in Donjane giving this road first preference on development. It has one bridge across Zhombe River near the 25 km peg heading north. Zhombe River Bridge east

Zhombe-Sidakeni Road

Zhombe-Sidakeni Road (Road 84-102)branches right from the Kwekwe-Gokwe Road at southern outskirts of Zhombe Joel District Service Center. It is sometimes called Senkwasi Road. It is 33 km to the Kadoma-Gokwe-via-Empress Road. It feeds

Gwesela West Gwesela West is ward number 9 of the 33 wards in Zibagwe Rural District Council of Kwekwe District. Its center is at Senkwasi Irrigation Scheme 14.5 km north east of Zhombe Joel ( Zhombe Joel is along the ''Kwekwe Gokwe Road'') and 14.5&nbs ...

, Empress Mine, Sidakeni and

Mabura Mabura Ward is ward number 6 of the 33 wards in Zibagwe Rural District Council of Kwekwe District. It is in Zhombe Communinal Land in Midlands Province of Zimbabwe. It is 100 km north-west-north of Kwekwe and 73 km south-west of Kadoma ...

. Some sections of the road in Manzamunyama and Navata are very slippery during rainy seasons.

Zhombe-Silobela Road

Zhombe-Silobela Road branches left at Zhombe Joel and it is a 39.5 km long gravel road. It passes through Gwenzi, Mavuli, Hwida, Ntabeni then joins Luveve-Silobela Road (Kwekwe-Nkai Road) 8.7 km short of Gweru River bridge and 24 km short of Crossroads Growth Point. Loreto Mission is just less than 1 km from Gweru River Bridge. From Zhombe Joel this road has unclear routes to

Exchange Irrigation Scheme Exchange Irrigation Scheme is a 165 hectare irrigated arable land in Zhombe Communal Land but in Silobela Constituency in Kwekwe District of the Midlands Province of Zimbabwe. It is 37 km southwest of Zhombe Joel, 83 km northwest of ...

but local people use various secondary roads to the scheme.

Fafi-St Judes Road

Fafi-St Judes Road branches left at Fafi shopping center, before Ngondoma River and it feeds Ntombankala and Dendera areas up to St Judes School. Some like to call this road the St Judes Crescent because of its loop-road characteristics with Champeni-St Judes Road. It makes a good round about at St Judes School and returns to Kwekwe-Gokwe Highway as Champeni-St Judes Road.

Muzvezve-Chemagora Road

Muzvezve-Chemagora Road is the local name of the road called Gokwe-Empress Road. Still some like to describe it fully in calling it the Kadoma-Gokwe-via-Empress Road, but the road neither reaches Kadoma nor

in its own capacity. Some sections among villages along the length of this road call it the Venice-Chemagora Road. Venice is a mine only from its intersection with the Harare-Bulawayo Highway and Chemagora is the area where this road branches right from the Kwekwe-Gokwe Highway. Sidakeni is the main village in which the road passes through this side of the Munyati River. It is a 9-foot tarred road and it is the oldest tarred road in Kwekwe District (north). It branches off to the right from Kwekwe-Gokwe Road just past the 73 km and goes past Sidakeni and crosses the Munyati River to join the A5. This is the shortest route for traffic from

Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...

to Gokwe South District. From the Kwekwe-Gokwe Highway the road feeds Gokwe-East,

, Empress Mine and Sidakeni. From the A5 the Gokwe-Empress Road branches westwards south of Kadoma at A5 Empress Mine Turnoff" a place popularly called "Mtarimanja" and officially Muzvezve. Muzvezve is a river across the A5 a few kilometres north of this turn-off. The Muzvezve-Chemagora Road goes for as a link to the R847 Highway which is the Kwekwe-Gokwe Highway or the P11. It passes through Venice Mine and Donain before reaching the Munyati River Bridge (Empress). It enters Kwekwe-Gokwe Highway at Chemagora, popularly known as Empress Turnoff.

Sembeula Road

Sembeula Road branches left just before Raj Center (-18.525702, 29.806548) and stretches 50.2 km to Gweru River Bridge in Nkai area well past Sembeula Village. (-18.719823 28.814896)

Masoro Road

Masoro Road or Hovano-Chinyudze Road is a 54 km (1-hour 5 min drive) gravel loop road that joins Kwekwe-Gokwe Road and Kadoma-Gokwe-via-Empress Road. It turns right from the Kwekwe-Gokwe Road just short of the 120 km peg from

. It is the Old Kadoma-Gokwe Road. It is not a safe road for vehicles in poor condition. The road descends from the Mapfungautsi Plateau on a very steep

pass Pass, PASS, The Pass or Passed may refer to: Places * Pass, County Meath, a townland in Ireland * Pass, Poland, a village in Poland * Pass, an alternate term for a number of straits: see List of straits * Mountain pass, a lower place in a moun ...

. It feeds Masoro, Tongwe, Mazalayedwa, Gwanika and Maliyami. It joins the Chemagora-Sidakeni at Masoro Turnoff popularly known as Chinyudze, about 5 km west of Columbina Township.

Connectivity

The road connects

and Gokwe South areas to all parts of the country via its

end. It serves Zhombe Communal Land, Chemagora purchase area,

, Nemangwe, Mutimutema and Sengwa coal mines.

Economic viability

There has been improved economic and business growth in areas served by the road over the years. Both Zhombe Joel and

have experienced economic growth because of the impact of the feeder road.

Road traffic statistics

Although there is no railway line to Gokwe, the road network, courtesy of the main R847 Kwekwe-Gokwe, has proved excellent. Road vehicles of all kinds and sizes are increasing just as in bigger towns and cities. According to the project performance evaluation report of the Zimbabwe Rural Roads Project number 1, the flow of vehicles of all sizes in 1984 had an average of 131 per day. In 1991, when the tarred road was opened, the flow of such vehicles rose to 212 with a marked increase of heavy vehicles and buses. By 2011, the flow of vehicles was as high as 660 per day, with heavy goods vehicles topping the list at an average of 321 per day. Unlike other Zimbabwean highways, the R847 has no toll gates, but the flow of vehicles on the road per day has since doubled the 2011 averages, according to statistics elsewhere on major highways. In past years, the

annual average daily traffic Annual average daily traffic, abbreviated AADT, is a measure used primarily in transportation planning, transportation engineering and retail location selection. Traditionally, it is the total volume of vehicle traffic of a highway or road for a ...

was done by traffic recording devices or by human observers who visually had to count and record traffic on tally sheets. However, at the fall of the

Zimbabwean dollar The Zimbabwean dollar (sign: $, or Z$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies) was the name of four official currencies of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 12 April 2009. During this time, it was subject to periods of extreme inflat ...

the staffed system was dropped only to come up later in the form of the toll gates system, which count vehicles by weight and generate revenue at the same time. The Kwekwe–Gokwe Highway is yet to have a toll gate. The increase of heavy vehicles spells the growth of business in

and other centers in the north-eastern parts of

Matabeleland North Province Matabeleland North is a province in western Zimbabwe. With a population of 749,017 as of the 2012 census, it is the country's second-least populous province, after Matabeleland South, and is the country's least densely populated province. Matabe ...

Beneficiaries

Settlements

The chief beneficiary of the R847 is

, which has become the newest town in

credit to the Kwekwe–Gokwe Highway. Zhombe Joel, CMB Nemangwe and Kabuyuni-Chitekete growth points have also grown to suburban standards. Empress Mine and Columbina Township though in link roads are beneficiaries too.

Vehicle operators

Road traffic users and vehicle owners have also benefited from the R847 bitumen highway in terms of vehicle operating cost savings. According to the project performance evaluation report of the Zimbabwe Rural Roads Project number 1, in 1984 the total savings on "vehicle operating costs" for all sizes of vehicles that used the Kwekwe-Gokwe Road was $4,084,244 for 212 vehicles; an average of about $19,265 per vehicle. As per this same

cost benefit analysis In production, research, retail, and accounting, a cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something or deliver a service, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which ...

in 2010, nine years after the opening of the Kwekwe-Gokwe Highway, overall vehicle operating costs for 660 vehicles was $11,384,880; an average of $17,250 per vehicle, a reduction of about $2,000 per vehicle.African Development Back Group , 16 August 199
Annex 10 page 1 of 4. Table: Savings in V.O.C. R847 Kwekwe-Gokwe (132km)
Operation Evaluation Department, Retrieved 6 February 2016

References

{{Kwekwe District Roads in Zimbabwe