The Sunday News
Rumbidzai Mbewe Sunday News Correspondent
THE Bulawayo City Council is set to provide more than 1 500 stands in three different suburbs in the city with the servicing of stands on the cards. There are 110 000 people on the housing waiting list in the city. Engineering services department director Engineer Simela Dube said 875 high-density residential stands in Luveve 5 extension and 169 medium-density residential stands in Mahatshula would be serviced through tenders while 541 medium-density residential stands were being designed for the Emhlangeni Phase 2 project.
Speaking at the commissioning of the residential stands at the Emhlangeni Phase 1 last week, Mayor Martin Moyo said the pre-sale project was designed to alleviate the housing backlog that is affecting the city.
He said there was still a lot of work to be done towards clearing the backlog that the city is facing.
“Recent statistics show that there are 110 000 people on the housing waiting list. This is a clear indication that there is still a lot of work to do to ensure that we clear the backlog. It is my hope that under the current strategic vision of Bulawayo, we will implement the necessary techniques to try and clear this backlog,” he said.
Councillor Moyo said the provision of housing was one of the strategic targets that the city council was using as they noted that human security was embedded in housing.
“Lack of housing not only compromises development but constitutes various societal ills that arise from homelessness. Inadequate housing is thus retrogressive to the prospects for sustainable livelihoods,” he said.
The mayor appealed to the residents of the new community of Emhlangeni to look after the infrastructure that has been installed. He urged the residents to prevent the infrastructure from any king of vandalism.
“I would like to appeal to the new community of Emhlangeni and Bulawayo as a whole to continue to look after the infrastructure that has been installed and to prevent any form of vandalism so that the services can last a long time,” said Councillor Moyo.
Speaking on the Emhlangeni project, Eng Dube said there were challenges faced during the implementation of the project which include the need to relocate and come up with a design for a new outfall sewer to connect into a bigger existing sewer taking into account the Zesa cables in the area.
“This project commenced on 5 September 2013 after being awarded to Stelix Civils (Pvt) Ltd and was originally expected to take 24 weeks but was later extended by another 16 weeks hence the final completion date was 5 September 2014,” he said.
The contract was implemented at a total contract price of over $2,9 million.
