The Sunday News
Tinomuda Chakanyuka, Senior Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council has shelved plans to construct two additional fire stations in the city due to lack of funds, an official has said.
As a result, delayed responses to emergencies to areas such as Waterford, Magwegwe North, Pumula, and Cowdray Park will continue.
In 2015 the local authority announced plans to construct additional fire stations within three years as part of efforts to enhance the city’s emergency preparedness and responsiveness.
Construction of the fire stations was estimated to cost about $120 000.
Bulawayo has four fire stations situated in Famona, Nketa, North End and Nkulumane.
The two fire stations were meant to cater for areas that are far from the available fire stations.
BCC senior public relations Mrs Nesisa Mpofu told Sunday News that funding constraints had forced the local authority to shelve the project.
“The City of Bulawayo would like to advise that the project was put on hold for now due to funding challenges.
“However, the site for Cowdray Park Sub Station has since been identified.
“Delayed responses to emergencies to remote areas such as Cowdray Park, Mahatshula etc will unfortunately continue until those stations are built,” she said.
Plans by the local authority were to build a fire station in Cowdray Park to cater for areas in the western parts of the city that are far from the existing fire station, while the other fire station would be built in Waterford.
In 2015 Bulawayo’s chief fire officer Mr Richard Peterson said the city needed at least six fire stations to achieve reasonable cover in terms of disaster preparedness and responsiveness.
He said some areas in the city were difficult to reach within the prescribed emergency response time from the present fire stations.
Emergency response teams are prescribed to react to reported emergencies and arrive at the scene within a maximum time of 10 minutes.
Mr Peterson said areas in the city such as Waterford, Magwegwe North, Pumula, and Cowdray Park were far from the available fire stations such that it takes the city’s fire department about 20 minutes to reach those areas in cases of emergencies.
He, however, pointed out that availability of resources could hamper their plans but said priority was being given to the Cowdray Park fire station.
Mr Peterson said Bulawayo’s emergency preparedness and responsiveness was better compared to other cities and towns in the country, including the capital Harare, which did not have adequate equipment to effectively deal with emergencies such as fires and road traffic accidents.
“Other cities in developed countries have more than 40 fire stations and we also aspire to get there in terms of disaster preparedness,” he said.
The country’s disaster preparedness has been questioned in the past, with experts noting that the present disaster management systems were more biased towards responding to, rather than preventing mishaps.
However, the country is reported to have registered significant progress in meeting the requirements of the Sendai Framework that seeks to boost countries’ resilience in the face of disasters since 2015.
This emerged during the 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Cancun, Mexico in May this year.
The Sendai Framework sets out seven targets to improve livelihoods in a sustainable manner by building resilience to disasters, also referred to as the 2030 Agenda. @irielyan
