Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has said it is optimistic that buses and kombis will move to Egodini Mall by the end of April.
In 2016, the BCC awarded Terracotta a tender for the redevelopment of the Basch Street Bus terminus popularly known as Egodini under a Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) facility.
However, since then, the multi-million-dollar project has failed to take off leading to both residents and councillors demanding the termination of the deal.
Responding to questions on the progress at Egodini Mall and issues around awarding of tenders during a policy dialogue on promoting transparency and accountability in public service delivery organised by Transparency International Zimbabwe (TIZ) on Tuesday, BCC procurement manager, Mlungelwa Khumalo, said the local authority does look at the terms and conditions of the contract with Terracotta.
“We are continuously engaging the contractor when it gets to a stage whereby you are saying let’s cancel the contract, the terms have been breached, there are a lot of questions that you will have to ask yourself like we are at this level if we decide to cancel this, what are the chances in this environment of getting an investor that will do exactly what we wanted to be done there or not,” said Khumalo
“But that is not to say we don’t look at the terms and conditions, we have looked at them and we are continuously engaging the contractor.”
He said residents should be seeing buses and kombis moving to Egodini before the end of April.
“Right now, in terms of our last meeting, you should be seeing buses and kombis moving to Egodini before the end of April, thus the engagement that we made and that’s the commitment that we got from the contractor,” said Khumalo.
He said if the deadline is again missed, the local authority will decide on the next action to take.
“If that is breached again, of course, we will decide on the next course of action, but as things stand now let’s wait until the end of April. We were promised until the end of April at least there will be activity there in the form of buses moving to pick people from that point,” said Khumalo.
