The Sunday News
BULAWAYO City Council has reaffirmed its position to stick to private developers despite having previously moved a motion not to work with them after some housing projects were left hanging after the developers disappeared.
The abandonment of projects by private developers has seen the council being forced to cancel all contracts. However, Bulawayo Mayor Councillor Martin Moyo has said the previous decisions were emotional and instead had negative effects on the city’s economic welfare.
In an interview on Friday, Clr Moyo said they were now enforcing stringent conditions to ensure that any private developers they engage would not give them problems.
“That was honestly an emotional decision that was made by council, which made us resort to offering pre-sale stands but we have since realised that this is not workable. Besides, us not having the necessary equipment, these private developers chip in by providing employment for our residents. So by us rejecting them, it would be like shooting ourselves in the foot because our residents really need employment.
“Yes our equipment will arrive soon but we cannot monopolise land development. What we are doing is that we have come up with stringent conditions when we are vetting the private developers we work with to avoid the previous problems where we had some giving all sorts of excuses why they could no longer complete their projects,” said Clr Moyo.
He revealed that they were in the process of re-engaging private developers who had disappeared when the country moved to the multi-currency regime to try and have them complete the projects they left hanging.
According to the latest council report, private developers were in the process of engaging their beneficiaries in a bid to get them to contribute funds to complete servicing. However, this was being met with resistance with beneficiaries insisting that council be roped in to complete servicing.
“The majority of these developers have cited funding constraints as the main reason for failing to complete servicing with this being attributed to the fact that they sold their stands to beneficiaries during the Zimbabwean dollar era and this money they collected is of no use under the current multicurrency regime.
“This scenario has left beneficiaries of these housing schemes who have, on the other hand, completed their housing structures but are stranded without access to proper services,” reads the report.
However, BCC has noted that there has been notable progress by developers who were allocated stands by council in the multicurrency era and although slow in terms of the pace of servicing, these developers had been visible on site.
According to the report, some of the private developers that were making significant progress include Glenkara Homes where 250 of the 1 000 Pelandaba West stands have been fully serviced with water, sewer and roads and were awaiting coupling to existing mains.
In the same suburb Hawkflight Construction has completed their allocated 180 stands and was now working on the road snags and preparing a design for the proposed sewer.
Other private developers that the local authority was engaging include E.C.T. Shonhiwa (Pelandaba West – 350 stands), Ranch Metro (Emganwini – 97 stands), Homelink (Parklands East III – 136 stands) and Aggregate Properties (Mahatshula North –200 stands). Inactive private developers are Alpha Construction (Cowdray Park II – 500 stands), ZIGEU (Cowdray Park III – 500 stands), PMTP (Cowdray Park III – 814 stands), GG Hardware (Cowdray Park III – 116 stands), Monologue (Cowdray Park III – 118 stands), Bopse (Pumula South II – 381 stands), PMTP (Pumula South III – 1004 stands), Mehluli Khumalo/Habek (Pumula South III – 207 stands), Jaroots (Mahatshula North – 100 stands), Bulawayo Glass and Allied Products (Selborne Brooke – 80 stands) and Black Consult (Selborne Park II).
