THE Second Republic is set to revolutionalise road maintenance in the country as a coal tar manufacturing plant outside Zvishavane in the Midlands Province is taking shape with the project expected to be operational next year.
The coal manufacturing plant is set to create more than 2 500 jobs and drastically reduce the road construction materials import bill.
Preliminary works which include land preparation and establishment of offices for the university company are in full swing.
Midlands State University (MSU) is preparing to move into industrial production of modified coal tar in response to the increased demand for sealant to upgrade and expand the country’s roadnetwork.
The university’s scientists and engineers developed the coal tar using local raw materials. The development is a major milestone as the country accelerates its industrialisation and modernisation.
Production of modified coal tar will drastically reduce road construction costs as the major raw material which is the tar, will be produced locally instead of being imported as is the case now.
The country at the moment is importing bitumen from South Africa which will soon be substituted by coal tar.
The production of coal tar will therefore save the country the much needed foreign currency which it is spending on importing bitumen.
The bulk of the coal tar raw materials will be asbestos fibre from the dumps of Shabanie-Mashava Mines.
In 2020, President Mnangagwa directed all institutions of higher learning to establish innovation hubs to enable the institutions to take a leading role in the country’s industrialisation programme.
MSU and other universities took up the challenge hence many of them have established companies that are producing goods and services for communities and industry such as the planned coal tar.
Government adopted Heritage-based Education 5.0 after realising that its institutions of higher learning such as universities and colleges were producing graduates that were not relevant to industry and their communities.
In an interview, Higher and Tertiary Education Innovation, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira said four years after the adoption of Heritage Based Education 5.0 the country is starting to reap benefits.
He said new factories are being established as a result of innovations taking place at universities and colleges.
“Most importantly, we learn in order to help our people. We had a patent for making new road surface at MSU and now we are building a factory in Zvishavane,” he said.
“We chose Zvishavane because the bulk of the materials that are going to be used to manufacture the coal tar will be sourced from mine dumps in Zvishavane and Mashava.
The target is to start full production of the tar next year and the development will drastically reduce import bill for road construction materials,” he said.
Prof Murwira said the production of coal tar was a very welcome import substitution set to save the country forex.
He said another area where universities were working to save foreign currency was the production of vehicle number plates locally.
Prof Murwira said for two years, six universities and two polytechnic colleges were researching on the production of number plates locally.
“We now have a factory which has got eight institutions that is the National University of Science and Technology (Nust), MSU, University of Zimbabwe, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Harare Institute of Technology, Marondera University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (MUAST), Mutare Polytechnic and Harare Polytechnic. They combined together to form a company to manufacture number plates and transport management systems,” said Prof Murwira.
He said the higher and tertiary institutions are committed to coming up with technological innovations that respond to community realities in line with Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabaninilo/nyika inovakwa nevene vayo philosophy.
Minister Murirwa said in the past the education system produced job seekers instead of job creators and this has since changed following the adoption of Heritage-based Education 5.0.
“This year we were concentrating more on innovation hence the establishment of innovation hubs at most institutions of higher learning,” said Prof Murwira.
He said at Lupane State University there was a goat and fish breeding project.
“We have a whole cycle where the waste comes from chickens and it goes to the fish and then to the field. We also bought them cattle so that they do the practical animal husbandry,” said Minister Murwira.
He said the ministry was capacitating universities to enable them to work on their innovation projects.
“At MUAST, we have established a big irrigation scheme because it is a university of agriculture. At Gwanda State University, we were paddocking it and we are starting agro innovations while at MSU we did the National Pathology Research and Diagnosis Centre, which is a state-of-art facility,” he said.
CUT in Chinhoyi has an animal medicinal feed factory and there is also a milking parlour which is one of the biggest in the country.
Prof Murwira said at Nust, Government is addressing the university stagnation issue.
“At Nust, we have started in earnest to build a Technovation Centre, which has been stagnant for years,” he said. – The Chronicle
