Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has taken delivery of four fire tenders acquired from Belarus by the government using the city’s 2021 devolution funds allocation.
Each fire truck was purchased for US$464 296.
The four fire engines are fitted with 5000-litre tanks of water and 300 litres of foam.
Speaking during the commissioning of the fire engines, on Thursday, the acting Town Clerk Sikhangele Zhou said the local authority has not been able to purchase any new fire tenders for more than two decades.
“We have relied on the partnership with Operation Florian and the benevolence of the citizens and the fire services from the United Kingdom,” she said
Bulawayo mayor David Coltart said the new fire tenders will go a long way in addressing a shortage of emergency vehicles.
“Today is a special moment because we received four new fire tenders for our great city, those of you who have followed some of my comments since taking office know that the council has been bemoaning the fact that we have fire tenders. They are going to fill a very serious gap in our fire defences,” said Mayor Coltart.
“These four fire tenders that we have received today are being procured through the devolution funds.”
He, however, said the government should involve local authorities when it comes to the procurement of service delivery equipment.
“We were not involved in the procurement of these fire engines but what I am advised is that there was no consultation regarding the fire engines, whilst we are grateful for these four, going forward we ask that when devolution funds are used, that there may be consultations with local authorities,” said
He added, “We should be consulted in detail in the use of devolution funds, whilst they look like wonderful machines, our fire services have never used machines like these before, there is training involved and it may have been beneficiary to use the devolution funds to get machines that are fire engineers and workers already familiar with.”
The mayor also lamented the increase in fire incidents in the city.
“In the last five years, we have had 2 513 fire incidents. The dry season causes a huge strain on our fire services, so we need vehicles. Many of the grass fires are started by negligence by our citizens, people through a cigarette bud in dry grass,” he said.
Coltart implored citizens to act responsibly and cut down on the number of fire incidents in the city.
“In this past week, I have had reports of our council employees burning refuse which not only is environmentally poor but also it can spread and cause further fires, so I implore our council employees and citizens to play their role,” he said.
Minister of State and Devolution funds for Bulawayo province, Judith Ncube said the firefighting equipment is meant “to significantly assist towards national safety”.
“Early this year the government of Zimbabwe under the leadership of Emmerson Mnangagwa for the supply of fire fighting and further commissioned 53 fire fighting trucks out of a total of 133 acquired from Belarus. The fire fighting equipment is meant to significantly assist towards the national safety as these fire engines are being distributed across all 92 local authorities in Zimbabwe,” she said.
Ncube said it is the government’s role in liaison with the local government to ensure fire safety and prevention.
“The fire tenders that have been procured from Belarus will be crucial for fire safety and prevention, they provide a continuous water supply to fire incidents which is essential for controlling and extinguishing fires,” she said.
Ncube urged the city of Bulawayo to take care of the equipment.
