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Midlands Bureau
KWEKWE City Council rues its decision to subcontract the clamping and parking disc exercise to a private company as it is losing revenue to the firm. City mayor, Councillor Matenda Madzoke, said although the council was happy that the exercise had decongested the Central Business District, it was not making much money from the programme.
He said:“Clamping in Kwekwe is being done by a private company which we contracted. The guy is making more money than the council. It does not make sense.
“We are going to revise that. Harare and other big cities have their own clamping teams. We put the issue through the relevant committee and a recommendation has been forwarded to council. Technocrats are working on that.”
Clr Madzoke said the team would compare benefits and disadvantages of council running the programme before taking over.
The mayor could, however, not be drawn into revealing the amount of money the council was losing to the private company.
Meanwhile, the city of Kwekwe has started work on constructing a new long distance bus terminus on the eastern part of the CBD.
The development puts to rest any hopes of long distance buses reverting to the long abandoned expensively built Amaveni Long Distance Bus Terminus.
Clr Matende said the new terminus, which was part of decongesting the CBD, would be compact and cost council an estimated $144,150.
Amaveni Bus Terminus was built in 1984 at a cost of Z$500,000, which was a fortune then.
It was officially opened by the late Vice-President, Simon Muzenda.
The terminus was a unique project as it was the only such structure in the country with state-of-the-art loading bays and shelter for commuters. Batanai Tavern was part of the terminus designed to give refreshments and fast-food takeaways to commuters.
Clr Matende said a council resolution to turn the long abandoned terminus into Cross Border terminus passed in 2012 was still in the pipeline.
He said: “The terminus will be one of the best in the country. It will be small and compact. Commuters will get everything there, including shops. We decided to construct the city long distance terminus after realising that commuters were resisting the Amaveni Terminus.
We identified the best site which does not interfere with CBD business. The new terminus to cost an estimated $144,150, is being built under the Built Operate and Transfer (BOT) concept. We are pursuing the triple P concept (Public Private Partnership) in this and other projects.”
Clr Matende said he would push the motion in council to sell the revitalisation of Amaveni Terminus.
He said the Amaveni Terminus project had already been accepted by cross-border transport operators.
“We will renovate the Amaveni terminus and construct a few offices for cross border bus companies. However, for other local buses to utilise Amaveni, we need a lot of capital.
“We need convenient shops for us to be able to divert buses from the highway. We intend to open a new highway that passes through Amaveni from Gokwe-turn-off and rejoining the Harare-Bulawayo Highway after passing behind Golden Mile Motel. These are future plans and they need rigorous marketing,” said Clr Matende.
Online Reporter