BCC to avail 5,000 stands on pre-sale

Prosper Ndlovu Business Editor—
THE Bulawayo City Council has announced plans to avail up to 5,000 housing stands before the end of the year under the pre-sale scheme as it moves to tame the ballooning housing waiting list. More than 100,000 home seekers are on the city’s housing waiting list with the local authority citing capacity constraints in the wake of subdued revenue inflows for failure to provide stands.

According to the council’s latest minutes, the local authority has approved the purchase of earth moving equipment worth about $5 million to be deployed towards servicing of stands.

The Director of Engineering Services, Simela Dube, reported that council bought one bulldozer, two graders, two tippers, two vibrator rollers, two pneumatic rollers, two compressors, one excavator and four bowsers. Of the four water bowsers, two had arrived.

He said there was a need to employ more workers to utilise the new equipment.

Bulawayo has been mandated to provide 15,000 housing units/stands by year 2018 under the government’s development blue-print, Zim-Asset.

The city council adopted the pre-sale approach, whereby home seekers finance the servicing of their own stands before developing them.

Fierce debate ensued over the stands issue recently with councillors saying the local authority should develop houses instead of subcontracting the service to private developers.

Several private developers have been accused of doing a shoddy job thereby short-changing desperate residents.

Since 2012 council has only issued a few stands with the bulk of housing development presently being done by private developers at exorbitant costs.

The councillors demanded that pre-selling of stands be resumed immediately and called for ring fencing of funds from the scheme so that more land could be developed.

Ward One councillor Mlandu Ncube proposed and was duly seconded that “council should provide at least 5,000 stands for pre-sale before the end of 2015”.

He was supported by Clr Earnest Rafemoyo from Ward 20 who sought clarity on progress in the purchase of $5 million equipment.

Councillors said the acquisition of the equipment would translate into a reduction of costs of servicing and bring down the stand prices.

Ward 27 Councillor Siboniso Khumalo observed that since 2012 Luveve stands had not yet been serviced pending the purchase of equipment.

“Council should prioritise the purchase of this equipment. Servicing of water and sewer could be done internally using council plumbers and contract workers as opposed to out sourcing. A caterpillar could be purchased for trenching,” he said.

Some councillors were of the view that the local authority engages banks for loans to finance servicing of stands but others shot down the idea citing high interest charges.

The council noted that most home seekers had the money and could afford to buy and build houses but were let down by the local authority whose projects take a long time to complete.

Deputy Mayor Gift Banda also noted with concern that while council had approved the purchases of equipment worth $5 million, up to now the exercise had not yet been completed.

In response Dube explained that council had in fact resolved that servicing of the Luveve stands be contracted out.

“After the procurement of the equipment there were partial changes to the effect that water and sewer servicing be tendered out while council does the roads storm drains. Council is facing manpower challenges in view of the freeze on recruitment. The same team maintaining the roads is also used for servicing,” said Dube.

It also emerged that CABS, a subsidiary of Old Mutual, had proposed to buy land, service and sell stands to residents but council did not accede to the request citing high costs of stands to residents.

The Financial Director Kempton Ndimande said two facilities — an overdraft of $2 million and a loan of $3 million – were to provide the funding for the purchase of equipment.

The Town Clerk Middleton Nyoni confirmed that the equipment had started coming but noted financing aspect had contributed to its slow delivery.