adminand equipment to be used in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded housing project.
No timelines for the actual construction work were given. But project co-ordinator Mr James Chiyangwa, who is also the deputy city housing director, said more building materials would be bought in September.
Yesterday Harare Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda unveiled a seven-tonne lorry that would be used to ferry building materials to the site.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given Harare a US$5 million grant for the construction of the town houses and upgrading of Mbare hostels.
Mr Masunda said the “judicious” expenditure of the grant would determine future housing delivery support from the foundation. Mr Masunda said once the Tsiga project is completed “we will go to decongest the Mbare hostels”. He said Harare has a huge housing back-log ranging between 500 000 to a million units.
“If we use the US$5 million judiciously there will see more money coming our way,” he said.
Mrs Bertha Chitekwe-Biti of Dialogue for Shelter, who together with Ms Sekai Chiremba of the Homeless People’s Federation helped Mr Masunda source the funding, expressed excitement at the partnership.
She said her organisation had identified 17 informal settlements in Harare and has discovered that the people residing there are not captured on the city’s housing waiting list.
She said a report would soon be made to the city proffering housing solutions that accommodate the city’s poor.
Mr Chiyangwa said construction would be done by beneficiaries of the project together with members of other housing co-operatives who fall under the auspices of the Dialogue for Shelter and Homeless People’s Federation.
Online Reporter