Bulawayo Mayor, Cllr David Coltart, has called on the contractors to draw up a final date for the opening of the first phase of the multi-million dollar Egodini project by Monday, December 18, 2023.
The Egodini Project has stalled for years, with the contracted company, Terracotta, failing its deadline. The company recently partnered with South African-based McCormick Property Development Company, to try and speed up the process.
Cllr Coltart applauded the progress that has been made thus far by the contractors, and although they had said all would be in order by today (December 15, 2023) for opening, there was still some outstanding work, but would be completed in the next few weeks.
“We discussed the legal issues up to satisfaction. The Town Clerk was given assurance by the Macomic property developers, with whom I have also done due diligence that they would now meet their targets. We can see the difference today, compared to what we saw during our initial tour in September. It was chaotic, but now there is progress. Even the toilets have been done according to standard. I’m not only talking about time but about the standard that we want. In this city, we aspire to greatness. We don’t want half-hearted things, half-baked things,” Cllr Coltart said.
“We willl meet on Monday and by then we want a specific date from the constructors on when this will be opened. An absolute specific date, probably in January, I don’t know. But we want to know the date on Monday. We want a day when we will commission this place, when the 400 vendors will occupy their stalls. We need to allocate the vendors in fairness and transparency.”
Assistant Director of Engineering Services, Engineer Methusi Dibidi, said most of the work has been done and the project is now around 90 percent complete.
“The place is almost complete. I can say maybe at least 90 percent. According to the elements of designs, we can say the water reticulation system and connection and the sewer are now at 100 percent. The public lighting system is yet to be connected to power. Right now there is lighting for the vending stalls but we also need lighting for the pathway. So we can say it is about 75 percent complete,” Eng Dibidi said.
“There is also a need to address the issue of the entrance for the vehicles. Ideally we want vehicles to enter in parallel and be able to move in parallel right through the facility.”
