adminRay Bande Senior Reporter
ONE of the major aspects of the contemporary economic blueprint —Zim-Asset — is the need to use locally available resources to ensure sustainable development and economic growth.
It has been a tradition for local authorities to base their operations on revenue from communities through land use tax and charging licences for both informal and formal business.
The current depressed macro-economic environment being experienced in the country has made it difficult for the attainment of 100 percent revenue collection.
This is primary due to loss of household in income by many of the community members.
With the mandate to provide service delivery to its residents, the Chimanimani Rural District Council (CRDC) has set a good example worthy emulating by any progressive local authority in the country.
The local authority has embarked on strengthening three of its income generating projects in order to augment its revenue base.
These income generating projects which include a gum plantation, a wood workshop and the Hotsprings Resort.
They not only provide revenue to the local authority but have also managed to create employment for local communities and continued provision of services. According to CRDC chief executive officer, Mr Nehemiah Deure, a total of 23 people are employed by the projects, to date.
“We have made a deliberate move to harness locally available resources to generate revenue for the local authority as well as create employment for the community.
“It is a turnaround strategy in the management system that has enabled us to efficiently use what we have to get what we want. This is paying dividends as we now have a dedicated accounting system and a project officer to co-ordinate the projects. The projects officer reports to the chief executive and this reduced bureaucracy.
“We have streamlined the workforce and the appraisal system giving results in meeting targets among other measures that we undertook to see to it that we get value from the God-given resources that we have in Chimanimani,” he said.
One of the major projects that CRDC is sprucing up to enhance revenue inflows is the Hot Springs.
CRDC acquired the Hotsprings Resort in 2003 for the purposes of generating income for the local authority, use in administrative and development related activities, promotion of tourism and hospitality industry in the district and for maintaining and safeguarding the natural national heritage.
The Resort is situated 85km from Mutare along the Mutare-Birchenough Bridge Highway.
To date, the project has 15 permanent staff members with experience in the hospitality industry and is doing well in the provision of accommodation, catering and conference facilities
With three natural hot spring pools (the only ones in the country), the centre is a national heritage sight that provides natural Hot Springs swimming pools at relatively affordable rates.
The mermaid grotto and the green mountain plantation is yet another income generating project that CRDC is working hard to derive benefit from.
Established in 2004, CRDC planted the green plantation — an area covering 480 hectares of gum plantation in Ward 15 and 13.
“Mermaids grotto plantation has 130ha covered with gum and 120ha with pine. The majority of staff employed by this Business unit are women. The project was established for the purposes of generating income for council and for use in development related activities as well as to create employment.
“Council managed to acquire a mobile saw mill during the prior year that has been stationed at Mermaids Grotto Plantation. The sawn timber produced is being sold at Council Wood Works and Checheche — a depot that was opened for customer convenience. This arrangement was done with the assistance of Chipinge RDC. Products and services offered include transmission poles, light round poles, sawn timber and droppers
“Future developments include value addition through treatment of light and transmission poles as well as expanding the existing market by undertaking synergies with other like-minded establishments.
The CRDC chief executive also noted that another project — the Chimanimani Wood Works — was set up in 1990 as a joint venture between Chimanimani RDC and the Germany Development Services.
The unit has four satelites that are used by outsiders. The main purpose of these satellites is to generate employment and assist emerging grass roots or small furniture enterprises with premises and technical assistance.
These small entrepreneurs only pay a nominal lease in return.
“The reasons for the establishment of this unit were to generate income for CRDC and for the use in development related activities as well as to create employment. It will also come in handy in assisting emerging grassroots business in related fields by providing managerial and technical advice as well as providing skill upgrading to workshop employees. Household, office furniture as well as roofing and joinery are some of the products we offer.
“In future, we are looking forward to the completion of a showroom at the village centre and also distribution of products to council sub stations for clients convenience. We are also looking ahead to creation of business linkages with other like-minded organisations outside the district for product placement
“So far, the business unit has managed to train four local people with skills for furniture production such as Messrs: Nzombe, Muchayi, Tekeza and Mlacha of Ngangu Township, Chimanimani. They are already running their own furniture business units,” he said.
The local authority – CRDC – has also made strides in the provision of medical facilities in the area.
“CRDC took over the running of Chimanimani village clinic from Population Services Zimbabwe in year 2010. The centre provides specialist medical services from two medical practitioners who visit the clinic every week. One of these is a general medical practitioner and the other is an eye specialist.
“This arrangement was made for the sake of convenience of those people/patients who need specialist medical attention. This is the only centre that provides such a service in the district,” said the CRDC boss.
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