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Makoni Rural District Council in Manicaland has won a lucrative contract to supply timber to Botswana in a deal that will see the council pocketing thousands of dollars.
MRDC has 1 000 hectares of timber.
Chief executive of MRDC Mr Edward Pise confirmed the development in a telephone interview with The Herald yesterday.
“We won a contract to supply fencing poles to a company in Botswana. A Botswana company got a tender to fence all roads in that country and it engaged us to supply the poles,” said Mr Pise.
He said they were supplying untreated poles.
“We are supplying them with truckloads of poles once every week. Each truckload is worth $2 500 and that is a positive development,” said Mr Pise.
Under the deal, MRDC harvests the poles and the Botswana-based company sends trucks to Makoni district to collect them.
“We are trying to penetrate other potential markets and as a council, we are very happy about this. It will earn money for the council and community at large in line with the objectives of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation,” said Mr Pise.
Zim-Asset advocates, among other things, the promotion of trade.
Manicaland is the country’s timber industry hub.
Before the discovery of diamonds at Chiadzwa, the timber industry was the province’s economic mainstay.
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