Bulawayo mayor David Coltart has urged land developers who are awarded tenders to develop housing stands to adhere to the provisions of their contracts and attend to roads as they are mandated to.
The mayor made these remarks while he deliberated with his councillors on how the council could address the issue of deplorable roads in the city.
The issue was raised by Ward 18 Cllr Felix Madzana who complained that contractors who are awarded tenders to develop in-fill stands, do not do justice when it comes to fixing roads.
“Is it possible to make it part of council policy that all the land developers who are granted tenders for developing stands also be given the mandate to fix roads. They cannot only focus on water and sewer and ignore roads. The agreements with the local authority should be that the roads must be done by them,” Cllr Madzana inquired.
Cllr Coltart said the agreement that the contractors have with the council compels them to fix the roads before they hand over the stands.
“There are development permits that apply to such projects and part of the conditions of these permits are that developers must fix roads, sewer and the like but you find that in some instances the developers do not comply. There is an area in the low-density suburbs, the one bounded by Circular Drive, where the developer did not fix roads properly. The council did not agree to the consent to transfer those properties. This helps to put pressure on the developers to comply with the agreements of their permits. The council policies are clear on that part,” Cllr Coltart said.
He added that the council needs to come up with a solution that will help the local authority get enough funding from the central government to fix the roads.
He said the council’s ability to fix the roads was affected by the paltry funds availed by ZINARA, which are also disbursed late.
According to the council minutes, the City was allocated ZWL 817,014,116.08 for the year 2023 and ZWL752, 431,477.38 had been disbursed to date leaving a balance of ZWL64, 582,638.70 to cover the remained part of the year for both routine and periodic maintenance works. Outstanding payments from 2022 would now be paid using the 2023 allocation.
“We need to appreciate the gravity of the issue of the deplorable state of our roads and come up with smart solutions. The engineers told us in a meeting we previously held that the amount of money we get from ZINARA is not anywhere close to the amount we need to fix the roads. And be that as it may, the funds they give us do not come in full which further affects our ability to fix the roads,” said Cllr Coltart.
“One of the things we need to do is to calculate how much money Bulawayo motorists contribute towards ZINARA. We can then make a political argument that we need a specific amount of money, based on the amount contributed by the city. In the meantime, the engineering department, if it has not started already, needs to have a compilation of all the damaged roads and we classify them according to priority. Some minor roads can be graveled but the major roads need serious attention.”
