The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
ZB Financial Holdings is working on spreading its housing project in various areas as it seeks to play an integral part in the provision of accommodation in the country.
ZB Financial Holdings group chief executive officer Mr Ronald Mutandagayi said the financial institution was in talks with a number of local authorities in the country with a view of purchasing allotted pieces of land to embark on housing infrastructural development.
“We are speaking with virtually all local councils. We are looking for land for delivery of infrastructure such as housing,” he said.
Mr Mutandagayi said the bank had already purchased land for the construction of 150 houses in Beitbridge.
“We are currently in Beitbridge where we have 150 stands there. We have mobilised a contractor to construct three demonstration houses so that once we finish servicing those stands those that would like us to build houses for them through a mortgage financing can choose the structure they need. The reason we did that is to maintain standards in a gated community . . . ,” he said.
Mr Mutandagayi also said the financial institution had signed an agreement for the purchase of 60 residential stands at a new up-market satellite town project of Hopeville on the outskirts of Bulawayo.
“Recently we signed an agreement to purchase 60 stands in the Hopeville development area. We will be giving you information once we start disposing those stands,” he said.
Mr Mutandagayi said the completion of the Plumtree project, which was commissioned in September 2017, has been dogged by the escalating cost of building material and the change from a multi-currency regime to a mono-currency regime where the domestic currency (Zimbabwe dollar) is now the sole legal tender for transactions within Zimbabwe.
“The cost escalated to a level where we just said let us put this on hold. Let us assess how the situation pans out and we can proceed when the situation is stable . . . we want to see it through at a reasonable cost so that the uptake of the residential or houses is good. Otherwise we will end up with a project where your customers will not be able to afford it so we are assessing the affordability,” he said.
The project was initially planned to be delivered in April last year. It is aimed at providing affordable housing to residents, with 366 houses earmarked for high-density with 342 meant for the medium density suburbs. Stand sizes range from 250 to 605 square metres.
