The Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has commissioned a new plant, machinery and vehicle fleet to improve service delivery in the city.
The local authority unveiled a grader, front-end loader, excavator and nine vehicles purchased for US$1 120 351.64.
Speaking at the commissioning event, Thursday, Bulawayo Mayor Solomon Mguni said the equipment will assist the City of Bulawayo towards achieving its mandate.
“Our fleet is now aged and prone to frequent breakdowns and in some cases, these breakdowns have taken place while we work at the various sites. To ensure continued service delivery, we have had to depend on hiring equipment from other service providers and this has been costly for the city and the residents. The city needs to have this equipment and other equipment to ensure that we are also timely in our maintenance programmes,” said Cllr Mguni.
The mayor also decried the lack of financing to meet the city’s infrastructure needs resulting in the council’s failure to replenish its vehicle fleet and equipment over the years.
One way of doing it, the mayor said, was improving revenue collection and bill payment patterns by the residents to improve service delivery and procure the resources required.
“The City of Bulawayo must procure more equipment and plant for other services such as refuse collection and fire and emergency services among others. To be able to achieve this, we need to work with residents through the timeous payment of service delivery bills. regrettably, poor payment of bills impacts the quality of service delivery,” he said.
The mayor also appealed to financial institutions to financial institutions to provide the necessary funding through long-term loans at affordable interest rates.
“The hyperinflationary environment makes it impossible for the city to raise capital funding through the loans and be able to frequently purchase this equipment. I am thus inviting the local financial institutions in Bulawayo to also partner with council in ensuring that we have the necessary funds towards such projects.”
