Tinaani Nyabereka
Gweru City council on Monday January 24 unpacked its 2022 developmental roadmap plan to the community and other stakeholders including the church.
The engagement was hosted by the Zimbabwe Head of Churches Denomination (ZHOCD) workshop under the theme “Strengthening the role of the church in promoting social cohesion and civic participation within devolution process.”
Addressing various stakeholders during the engagement meeting in Gweru, Ward 15 Councillor Trust Chineni said a number of plans were in the pipeline this year.
He told the gathering that some of the plans are being carried forward from the 2021 plan schedule as council was working in accordance to the resources at hand.
“Our 2022 plans started with our 2022 budget consultations where we engaged residents concerning our budget and what we intend to do as a city. Other plans are to construct substations in Mkoba and Senga as we discovered that our fire brigade team reaction times to emergencies are being delayed by poor road networks. If our substations are closer, at least our teams can respond to accidents on time.
“We also want to increase our ambulance fleet because our emergency department requires about 5 ambulances in order to operate effectively in the city and the province at large. All things being equal, we even render services to areas as far as Battlefield in Kwekwe and Ntabazinduna especially on road accidents.
Chineni said the city managed to purchase an ambulance and a tipper last year through the ZW$50.6 million devolution funds allocated to them, adding that paperwork for the ambulance was not yet complete for it to start operating. He said council also aimed at increasing public lighting to ensure public safety at night.
“We started installing tower lights last year and we are continuing. In the Central Business District (CBD) you can see that lights were installed but we hope to go to residential areas,” said Chineni.
He added that lights installation was being done in compliance with the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) regulations.
“Installation of lights is being done in compliance with the ZERA regulations as we were made to install energy savers. So a tower unit the last time we checked was going for ZW$ 400 000 and as of now, we are not sure where it stands. So its quiet expensive and we hope with the devolution funds, things will go well this year,” he added.
Presenting on the state of by-laws awareness and adoption, Gweru ward 8 Councillor Notai Dzika said as a local authority, there was need for people to know the importance of embracing the law in the community.
He added that the recently passed noise by-law was meant to reduce noise pollution in residential areas as some people were infringing the liberties and rights of others.
“We were recently experiencing cases of all night parties and ceremonies which were disturbing others in various wards. The problem is that when people do their parties, they do not have any clearance from the relevant authorities hence they go on to violate rights of others who want to sleep, study and do some other business. So the law give restrictions on the time at which people ought to operate when using sound systems.
“We continue to urge vendors to go to designated sites. Selling in front of other shops is prohibited and soon we have by-laws which will be enforced in line with that because as a local authority we do not even collect revenue from such people because their trading areas are illegal.
“We are also into road repairs this year as last year we got ZW$11 million from Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA) but it was not enough to refurbish all our roads. We hope this year ZINARA will disburse more funds so that we revamp the roads without any hindrances,” added Dzika.
Recently council received a new tractor and a front end loader which were bought using devolution funds last year
Meanwhile, the church has been urged to pray and advocate for development.
Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ) Gweru Programs Officer, Tatenda Ushe urged the church to be actively involved in governance issues.
