Chronicle EditorWalter Mswazie Herald Correspondent
MASVINGO City Council’s efforts to develop a $1,5 million five-year masterplan has been dashed amid reports that their South African contractor has ditched the local authority.
Mayor, Councillor Hubert Fidze, confirmed the development saying the cash-strapped local authority had hired a South African company to do the masterplan for council, but the contractor is nowhere to be found.
“We are unable to complete the five-year strategic masterplan for the city because our South African contractor has ditched us,” he said.
Clr Fidze said council has no capacity to do the masterplan on their own hence banking on international partners who unfortunately have betrayed them.
“We are aware that the drafting of the masterplan has taken long without anything on the ground, but we are still optimistic that it will come to fruition.
“The problem is we were ditched by our South African contractor that we had recommended. We made efforts to look for the company from the information we had, but they were nowhere to be seen. Their contacts are also no-longer in use,” he said.
Clr Fidze said the masterplan will now be done by local contractors with support from the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing.
“The contractor just disappeared and we were left with no choice apart from looking for a local contractor — udicorp — under the guidance of our parent Ministry.
“The charges for the local contractor are slightly lower than those that the South African contractors had set,” he said
Clr Fidze said the plan will spell out projects to be undertaken by council for that period including timeframes, budgets and performance results.
The drafting of the masterplan was scheduled to have started in 2011, following a grant of R10 million had been availed by a South African government through the Ministry of Trade.
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