adminThupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
BEITBRIDGE Town Council has entered into a private- public- partnership with two property developers who will service 2,606 high density residential stands in Dulibadzimu suburb.
The town’s secretary, Loud Ramakgapola said they had engaged Forit and SDP Africa to service the stands over six months.
He said SDP Africa was working on servicing 2,106 stands while Forit would service 500 others.
“Civil works started in March and we expect the stands to be ready for occupation at the beginning of September.
“The whole idea is to address accommodation problems in this town and reduce our housing backlog which is around 11,000. The demand for houses continues to grow with each passing day,” said Ramakgapola.
He said high density stands were available to anyone on their housing waiting list.
The town secretary said the stands will have tarred roads, sewerage reticulation and water before occupation.
The town council was also courting other land developers who were interested in building houses in the serviced area on a cost recovery basis. “So far SDP has gravelled the roads and laid water and sewerage reticulation pipes while Forit is still on excavations but they’ve assured us that they’re still on schedule for completion,” he said.
Ramakgapola said they were also working on servicing 150 other stands under another partnership which they entered into with ZB Bank in 2012.
He said civil works were 90 percent complete in that project.
“We’re also open to private-public-partnerships with those players interested in constructing more water reservoirs around the town.
“You’ll note that the government has constructed a new water treatment plant with tenfold pumping capacity and we are short on holding tanks,” added Ramakgapola.
“This means that we’ll have to pump water for 24 hours if we’re to supply all the households in this town including those that are being serviced.”
The new water treatment plant has a pumping capacity of 2,160 cubic metres per hour. When complete, the water treatment plant is expected to augment water supplies to the town that has an estimated population of 42,000 people and an additional 10,000 transit population per day.
Beitbridge town’s water and sewerage reticulation system relatively improved between 2009 and 2011 following the repair of its infrastructure by the World Bank under the Beitbridge Emergency Water Supply and Sanitation programme.
The bank spent $2,65 million as an immediate response to the cholera outbreak which swept across the country in 2008.
Online Reporter