The Sunday News
Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
AT the turn of the millennium the Government came up with a number of initiatives to fund infrastructure and urban development among them the Community Share Ownership trusts and recently the devolution funds.
Some of the models have worked while some were dropped for one reason or the other either due to bureaucratic bottlenecks or complacency in the corridors of power.
Beitbridge is one of the country’s fastest growing towns and has been yearning for development with lack of funding for some key projects being one of the major impediments.
The town has been left out of the Community Share Ownership Trust despite hosting Sadc and the country’s busiest inland port of entry where the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) and the Zimbabwe National Road Agency (Zinara) among other parastatals are collecting a combined $800 million annually at Beitbridge.
Though the Government tried to transform the town in 2006 under the National Economic Priority Development Programme (NEDPP), the project has become a pipedream with Treasury no longer allocating funds to this noble initiative.
The programme (NEDPP) came with massive civil works projects including the construction of 16 blocks of flats to house 64 families mainly middle-class civil servants, 250 core houses for home ownership, 52 F14 houses for civil servants, road dualisation, upgrading water supply and sewer infrastructure in the town.
In addition, it also provided for the establishment of other institutional facilities, namely; a hospital, primary school, secondary school, civic centre, Government composite office block, modern truck inn, shopping complex, a five-star hotel, an aerodrome and the upgrading of the current border post to meet world class standards.
Some of the projects are complete while others are at various stages of construction.
Since coming into office, the New Dispensation led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been hard at work to transform the town and the border post in line with its envisaged Vision 2030.
Currently civil works on the $241million border upgrade are underway and it is believed that after three years the port of entry will be a modern urban centre of choice to facilitate international trade and the free movement of people within the Sadc region.
On 16 June 2014 the then Transport Minister, Dr Obert Mpofu and Ms Dipuo Peters of South Africa signed an agreement to establish the Beitbridge Bridge Development Fund to finance key infrastructure projects in Musina and Beitbridge towns.
The fund was established after Government assumed ownership and operations of the New Limpopo Bridge following the expiry of a 20-year Built Operate and Transfer (BOT) agreement with New Limpopo Bridge Pvt (Ltd), a company which constructed the bridge in 1994.
The Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) is collecting toll fees from the bridge on behalf of Government. It is estimated that Zinara is collecting an average of $1million from the NLB toll fees.
However, five years down the line the Beitbridge Bridge Fund is yet to see the light of the day and anyone enquiring from Government is referred from office to office until they are frustrated.
Many residents welcomed the creation of the funds hoping it will fund the upgrading of roads, sewer, water and housing infrastructure which the cash strapped local authority is failing to provide.
It is a feeling among most residents that they should get a piece of the funds from the border considering that the town bears the burden of the transit population.
Sunday News understands that over 100 000 transit trucks and 50 000 locally bound trucks and six million travellers are accessing Zimbabwe or South Africa via Beitbridge Border Post annually.
Additionally, goods worth over $2 billion are imported via the same border from South Africa annually with 3 000 cross border buses and 150 000 light vehicles passing Beitbridge monthly.
However, for Beitbridge residents the Beitbridge Bridge Fund has remained a pipedream since they are yet to see the fruits of the initiative.
It is important for Government to operationalise the Fund (BBF) if the devolution concept is to bear fruits in Beitbridge Town.
The state of infrastructure at the border town remains in a sorry state though Government is making relative progress in mordernising the town.
In essence it has become a case of poverty amid plenty for the community of Beitbridge, considering that the border is one of Treasury’s major cash cows.
