The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube Municipal Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council has vowed that it will go ahead with project to rehabilitate the Basch Street Bus Terminus commonly known as Egodini despite the Government advising the local authority to revisit the deal amid corruption allegations over the awarding of the tender for the project. Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Engineer George Mlilo reportedly convened a special council meeting with councillors and council officials where he read the riot act regarding the manner in which the project was handled.
Bulawayo Provincial Affairs Minister Cde Eunice Nomthandazo Moyo also raised the red flag regarding the manner in which the local authority handled the tender.
The rehabilitation, which was initially meant to start in January 2014, has experienced a number of false starts, with both the local authority and the contracted company reportedly not committing themselves to the commencement of the project.
South African civil engineering firm Tearraccotta Private Limited won the tender ahead of two other local companies to upgrade the terminus, a project that is expected to gobble close to $60 million.
However, the local authority seems to have ignored the Government, with the contractor already on site doing the preliminary work inclusive of surveying.
The council senior public relations officer, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu, said everything was on course regarding the commencement of actual construction work.
“The project is still going ahead. The contractors are currently doing the preliminary work preparing for actual construction,” said Mrs Mpofu.
Contacted for comment Eng Mlilo said the ministry had made their views clear regarding the project and it was now up to the local authority to address the loopholes that were noted.
“We were clear regarding that project, I also had a meeting with them where we discussed the issue. All we are saying is that the project should be done above board,” said Eng Mlilo.
Efforts to get a comment from the city’s Mayor, Councillor Martin Moyo were, however, fruitless.
However, councillors who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed that they had decided to ignore the Government’s directive as they felt it would be against the city’s development agenda.
“Councillors felt that if we cancelled the project this will actually be criminal to the development agenda hence we unanimously decided to ignore the Government’s position and tell the contractor to go ahead and start construction work as soon as possible so that by end of year significance progress would have been made.
“What the Government is failing to understand is that this was not even a tender, as council we are not paying anything but it is this company that is actually pouring in cash into the whole project, it is more of an investment that will actually benefit the city more, so there is no need for us to just delay its commencement,” said one councillor.
The initial tender for the re-development of the terminus was advertised and closed on 25 June 2012.
A pre-adjudication interdepartmental meeting was held on 11 September to consider the submissions, where Tearraccotta was awarded the tender. The company was also awarded with a 99-year lease to the terminus.
Past projects that have been done by the company include Edendale Shopping Mall in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu Natal, Chris Hani crossing Taxi facility in Gauteng and the Tsakane Mall Taxi rank again Gauteng.
