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Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Reporter
BULAWAYO’S deputy mayor, Councillor Mlandu Ncube has hailed the continued revival of key industries in the city, saying this showed the renewed confidence by investors in investing in the country’s second capital.
A few years ago, the city’s industrial sector was on a sharp decline with a number of companies either closing or relocating to Harare with thousands of people in Bulawayo therefore being rendered jobless.
However, over the past couple of years, a number of companies have started emerging from the red and growing their capacity utilization.
Commenting on this positive move, Clr Ncube said as the local authority they fully appreciated the revival of key industries in the city, noting that this would go a a long in improving Bulawayo’s economic performance.
“We have companies like Ingwebu, United Refineries, Lobels Bread and Matabeleland Clothing. Monarch, to mention but a few, we appreciate the role they play in providing employment to our Bulawayo community and also, we urge our stakeholders as the city to support these patriotic companies.
“We know there was a time when we had a significant number of companies that were closing in the city, resulting in increased unemployment but in recent years we have seen the trend changing with more companies revamping operations, which is encouraging and shows the renewed investor confidence,” said Clr Ncube.
He noted as the city the creation of employment opportunities meant more residents could be in a position to pay their rentals which are key to service delivery.
“If you note when these industries were closing there was also an increase of people failing to pay their rates and rentals because they had no steady income therefore with these developments we are happy that as the local authority our coffers will improve thereby improving service delivery,” he said.
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