Aspiring candidates for Ward 7 in Gwanda have promised to work on improving service delivery in the ward and refurbish the one-roomed houses in Marriage Quarters.
Ward 7 is made up of some of the old suburbs in the mining town.
The ward became vacant following the recall of the mayor and Ward 7 councillor, Jastone Mazhale by the MDC-T party.
Mazhale of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) who is seeking to reclaim his seat will go up against Vusani Mhlanga of the MDC-Alliance, Lizwe Nyathi of ZAPU and Thembani Mathuthu of ZANU-PF.
In an interview with CITE, Tuesday, Mazhale said he wants to be re-elected so that he can finish off some projects he had started working on.
“I am hoping that if I am re-elected, I will fulfill what we had arranged with ward 7. There are important things that we wanted to finish before 2023 such as refurbishing the one-room houses and peg the houses so that residents can be able to do extensions and stay on proper infrastructure,” said Mazhale.
“As it is there are people staying in one room using single toilets per two families, they use one tap as four families, thus what I am hoping to fulfil as we left the project halfway.”
He said they had already looked for surveyors to do the pegging so that residents can have separate toilets and live a decent life.
Mhlanga, a former councillor said he was concerned with the deteriorating service delivery in the ward.
“I was once elected before and have noticed that things are not going well looking at service delivery due to the fact that there was no longer a councillor representing the people. Ward 7 is an old location where there is no development because the ward is surrounded by other suburbs,” said Mhlanga.
“The rooms were constructed long back and they were called marriage houses but because of the living conditions nowadays it’s no longer acceptable because people are now overpopulated.”
Meanwhile, ZAPU candidate, Lizwe Nyathi said his major focus will be dealing with water challenges faced by residents.
