The Sunday News
Fairness Moyana in Hwange
PLANS for the construction of the Hwange Civic Centre through a joint venture between Hwange Local Board and Old Mutual have stalled as they are being frustrated by the Provincial Physical Planning department’s delay in the sub-division of land.
The much awaited civic centre will be a first in Hwange and is expected to play a major role in developing the status of the town and council. A civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to provide essential services to a city or town. The centre, which houses a central business district of a community or a major shopping centre is tailored to support the often specific needs of communities.
Speaking in an interview on Friday, HLB town secretary Mr Ndumiso Mdlalose said commencement of construction of the centre was being hampered by delays from the Provincial Physical Planning department in sub-division of land.
“Our partners, Old Mutual want to come down and start work but they have been hindered by the unavailability of the sub-division of the land so that they can work on it properly. That sub-division is pending at physical planning with the provincial department. We have been putting pressure on them to avail that sub-division so that work can commence. They are actually frustrated by that I don’t know what is keeping physical planning from unveiling that sub-division plan,” said Mr Mdlalose.
He said the civic centre would play an integral role in ensuring HLB’s visibility as well as ease of doing business for the transacting public due to its proximity to the Victoria Falls- Bulawayo highway.
“The civic centre is going to transform Hwange in that it will be the first focal point for the town and is ideally located along the highway so it means it’s going to be more visible than where we are now. It will allow people to transact business as they get into town and proceed either to Victoria Falls or to Bulawayo.
Therefore, it is going to be a first for the town and the necessary development for a local authority, which seeks to upgrade its status into a municipality for example.”
Meanwhile, the local authority recently awarded a tender to a construction company to complete the new office complex.
“On development projects which are currently underway, we are working on the construction of the office complex which is at Baobab of which we recently awarded a tender to complete the structure. As you may be aware, it was all along at slab level so we now want somebody to take it up to completion.
The other projects of course have to do with devolution funding where we have awarded a tender for the ECD block to be completed. We are also in the process of awarding other tenders for the other works including the sewer infrastructure upgrading and so forth,” said Mr Mdlalose.
