The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
MOST preliminary work on the construction of the $60 million state-of-the-art Egodini Mall and Intermodal Public Transport Interchange in Bulawayo has been done, an official said.
Terracotta Private Limited representative Mr Thulani Moyo said the much-awaited Egodini project was still within its timelines with the first phase expected to be completed in October next year.
The South African civil engineering firm Terracotta is the project developer while the main contractor is another South African construction company, Liviero Group.
“It is not correct that work on the site has not commenced. Like with any other project, construction works for Egodini project are being done in accordance with the project construction programme. In terms of this programme, there are a number of site preparation works that are required in anticipation of Phase I main works which will be completed in October 2019,” said Mr Moyo.
He, however, acknowledged that the process of removing informal traders, taxi operators and businesses and handing over of the site to the developer was delayed.
“On site handover, the first task was to relocate informal traders and taxi operators to new trading facilities provided by council. This process took longer than initially anticipated but the slight delay is understandable considering that a significant number of informal traders and taxis were involved. Thereafter, the developer was able to hand the site over to the main contractor to immediately secure the entire site,” said Mr Moyo.
He said upon securing the site from the public specialist contractors started conducting technical studies.
“A final topographical survey of the site was undertaken to confirm the preliminary civil engineering design of the development in terms of existing levels, positioning of retention lines, relocation of existing services and cut and fill quantities and levels. Similarly, in order to complete the structural engineering design, a comprehensive geotechnical study of the substrate soil conditions has been successfully completed,” said Mr Moyo.
The geotechnical study involved drilling over 30 test pit holes at pre-selected positions to various depths and extracting a number of rock samples that were exported to South Africa for various laboratory tests to confirm the structural engineering design of the development.
“Another significant study concluded is the hydrological study which involved drilling further holes to gain full understanding of the presence and behaviour of any underlying water bodies. All of these studies could only be practically undertaken on a vacant site from an occupational health and safety perspective,” said Mr Moyo.
He said full-scale demolition of infrastructure within the project’s scope and civil works was expected to start after approval by the Environmental Management Agency.
“A key component of the demolition plan, permit and related approvals from the Environmental Management Agency is that as much re-usable material should be reclaimed by the developer and handed over to BCC (Bulawayo City Council) for re-use in other public facilities prior to any demolition works being undertaken on site.
“As a result of this task being done in a manner that ensures salvaged material is re-usable, these works are delicate and time consuming. Once this activity has been completed and council auditors verify that recyclable material that was identified has been received by the city then full scale demolition and civil works will commence,” said Mr Moyo.
He said a contact centre to be used for the employment of people, particularly locals has been established and was expected to be launched soon.
“Once launched then people will be able to apply for jobs through the contact centre and the main contractor will be able to employ the people it requires in order to ramp up construction activities in line with the construction programme,” said Mr Moyo.
He said plans are underway to apply to the Government for the project to be granted National Project Status.
The mall would have 50 shopping centres, a bus terminal building, commuter omnibus bay and modern informal traders’ bays with storage counters as well as taxi association offices.
