adminThupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
BEITBRIDGE Town Council has allocated 1 200 stands which were serviced by two private property developers in Dulibadzimu suburb. The town secretary Mr Loud Ramakgapola said they engaged Forit and SDP Africa to service 2 600 residential stands last year.
He said the local authority had allocated SDP Africa 2 106 stands and Forit 500.
“Civil works started in March last year and we expect the stands to be ready for occupation as soon as they are connected to water and sewer reticulation,” he said.
“The whole idea is to address accommodation problems in this town and meet the ZimAsset target on mass housing. Our housing backlog stands at around 10 000 and the demand for houses continues to grow.”
Mr Ramakgapola said high density stands were available to anyone on their housing waiting list.
He said the property developers were servicing stands in three phases and these would have tarred roads, water and sewer reticulation facilities before occupation.
“Civil works are almost complete. So far SDP Africa has completed serving over 750 stands and setting up sewer reticulation pipes and tarring the roads. They have done trenching of water reticulation pipes.
“Furthermore, Forit has competed laying the water reticulation pipes and are in the midst of compacting the roads and we expect the tarring to begin soon,” said Mr Ramakgapola.
He added that they were also courting other land developers who were interested in building houses for the community in the serviced area on a cost recovery basis.
Mr Ramakgapola added that they were also seeking partnerships with other development agencies to connect water and sewer reticulation facilities to over 2 000 residential stands which were allocated to people between 2005 and 2011.
He said though the council was in the midst of connecting the stands to water mains using its own funds, the projects was slow as these are inadequate.
The town’s water woes are set to end when Government completes the construction of a new water treatment plant with a pumping capacity of 2 160 cubic metres per hour.
Civil works at the new pump are 98 percent complete and Government needs to raise $700 000 in order to address logistical issues before they can start pumping water.
Online Reporter