Bubi RDC seeks private partners

Nqobile Tshili Chronicle Correspondent
BUBI Rural District Council is inviting businesses and organisations interested in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) as part of its five-year strategic plan to steer development and improve service delivery in the area in line with the country’s economic blueprint, Zim-Asset.

Bubi’s chief executive officer Patson Mlilo said the district’s 2016-2020 plan seeks to facilitate the building of schools and health facilities as the area has many makeshift structures.

He said their strategic plan complemented Zim-Asset through improving social services.

“We want to participate in joint ventures for the development of our council. We’re a very friendly RDC and we need public private partners in the construction of schools, health care facilities and irrigation schemes so that we can achieve our dreams,” said Mlilo.

He said the RDC was facing a lot of challenges as it was composed mainly of resettlement areas.

“This used to be a commercial area so we don’t have proper schools. We rely on satellite schools and some of them used to be farm houses. We’ve seven secondary and 27 primary schools and in the next five years, we want to build better classrooms and teachers’ cottages to create a better learning environment for our children,” he said.

Mlilo said to ensure that schools were developed, they had introduced a building levy and pupils at primary schools pay $1 per term while those in secondary school pay $2 per term.

He said Bubi has few health care facilities and those interested can venture into PPPs.

“Some people travel up to 45KM to reach the nearest clinic. Some people end up not getting health care until it is too late.

“Our hope is to have a clinic within a 10KM radius. Apart from these problems we also have transport challenges which worsen the situation,” Mlilo said.

He said they were also keen to revive irrigation schemes in the area.

Mlilo said although Bubi RDC has huge gold deposits, the area is under developed and they have not benefitted from resources under their jurisdiction.