Council ventures into mining

Sukoluhle Ndlovu, Midlands Correspondent
GWERU City Council has embarked on a drive to augment its revenue generation by venturing into quarry mining, a development set to ease the local authority’s financial constraints.

In an interview with Sunday News last week Gweru Mayor Councillor Josiah Makombe said the local authority has partnered with a private investor to carry out the operations.

“We are about to start quarry mining on our mining claims, and we are partnering several investors on this project.

We are now in the process of doing paper work for the mining operations to start which we hope will be done as soon as possible,” he said.

Clr Makombe said the money raised from the mining ventures will be channelled towards service delivery.

“We are very confident that when mining commences, the local authority will realise revenue that will be used to improve service delivery in the city,” he said.

Cllr Makombe said some of the quarry will be used to rehabilitate roads in the city.

“We will also use quarry stones for maintaining our roads, as most roads in the city are in a bad state due to incessant rains, so this will save us a lot of money.”

Cllr Makombe said the local authority would also roll out various projects to generate more revenue.

“As a council we are not only limited to this one venture, we want to look at other avenues of raising money as we do not want to depend on money from residents only. Therefore, we will be rolling out more projects in the near future that will help us improve on service delivery,” he said.

Cllr Makombe also said the city council was failing to improve its service delivery due to non-payment of bills by residents. — @sukusinini.