adminSamuel Kadungure Senior Reporter
MANICALAND Provincial Administrator, Mr Fungai Mbetsa, has implored Rusape Town Council to rectify its past mistakes by prioritising the provision of water and sanitary facilities in Magamba area. Mr Mbetsa said the situation in Magamba was akin a ticking time bomb whose consequences are in the same league with social upheavals in Epworth.
A number of factors ranging from escaping high rentals and increasing family sizes are some of the factors that are behind the fastest growth of Magamba despite the residents facing a myriad of challenges ranging from poor sanitation services and challenge of social vices in the area.
Magamba was planned as an urban residential area and this rapid increase in population was occurring without any water supply and sanitation facilities in place.
Magamba has high, low and medium densities.
Council started parcelling unserviced stands in Magamba in early 2000.
The council is now grappling with huge costs to meet the residents’ demands for standardised civic facilities.
“We do not want another Epworth in Magamba. That suburb is growing faster than Vengere and the situation there demands that we take it as major priority,” said Mr Mbetsa.
He was addressing council officials at a strategic workshop review last week.
“Magamba is a non-ambulant child and the rate at which it is growing without water, sewer, roads, public and street lights and social services is worrying us. It is a serious concern to Government because you are the ones who allocated those people stands and gave then the greenlight to build. The people have money and they continue building and you are failing to catch up with their pace. It is your duty as a council to provide sewer, water, roads and to facilitate the construction of schools, health centres and recreational facilities. We do not want what is happening in Epworth to be repeated in Rusape,” said Mr Mbetsa.
“I know it is expensive to correct the situation at a go. It is best to do that in phases. You should have specific targets to achieve so that the problem is gradually eradicated,” said Mr Mbetsa.
Mr Mbetsa urged the council to lure private players on board to get around the mess.
He said other councils had entered into such arrangements and were successful.
“Let us not be control freaks. Your duty as a council is to facilitate. You cannot facilitate development by being control freaks. Engage other players to provide the best for your people. We really want Rusape to grow into a municipality and eventually a city, but that cannot happen with Magamba as it is,” said Mr Mbetsa.
Town secretary, Mr Maligwa, said Magamba was their major priority.
He said the local authority had connected more than 500 houses with water and sewer facilities.
Mr Maligwa said council would continue engaging residents so that they fulfil their obligations to enable his council to provide the best for them.
The Magamba issue popped up at a time when the council and the residents were engaged in consultation to find a way forward after the council had engaged debt collectors to force residents into honouring their lease agreements.
The council is exploring avenues to recover outstanding annual lease fees which it hopes to channel towards the servicing of the occupied and new stands.
Magamba representative in Rusape Residents Trust, Mr Isaac Mlambo, expressed optimism that they will find a win-win solution in their consultations.
Mr Mlambo acknowledged that as residents they had an obligation to pay for the envisaged services.
“People had overreacted because the move by council had taken them by surprise. The heat in the kitchen has subsidised and we are engaging to find a way out of this. We have taken a collective position. We have an obligation to pay so that council can service the area. However, we want council to understand our plight. We are engaging them so that we can pay the current lease fee and enter into an implementable payment plan to clear the outstanding debt. There should be feedback between council and the residents. We should not ambush each other.
“In a way council has to accept blame because they are the ones who parcelled residential stands without provision for basic services like water, sewer and roads in Magamba. It is the responsibility of council to provide these and under the circumstances we need to find each other,” said Mr Mlambo.
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