Clayton
Shereni
City of Masvingo is in
the process of acquiring six pre-owned vehicles and has budgeted US$120 000 for
the deal, TellZim has learnt.
Council has already
flighted a domestic tender advert inviting bidders for the supply and delivery
of the vehicles.
Meanwhile, the council is
struggling to provide optimum service delivery and it recently drew a water
rationing programme which sees suburbs receiving water for only two days per week.
The city has only two
refuse collection trucks which are woefully inadequate for the job at hand.
Acting Town Clerk,
Engineer Edward Mukaratirwa told TellZim the pre-owned vehicles will be
critical in efforts to improve the mobility of council employees.
“We want five sedan
vehicles and one kombi. The vehicles are critical for council operations
including carrying our workers who stay out of town. Some of our workers stay
at Bushmead Water Works so they need transport. We have set aside US$120 000
for that exercise,” said Mukaratirwa.
The local authority is
currently implementing a water rationing exercise and refuse collection has
since been stopped in some areas due to lack of resources.
Residents’
representative organization, Masvingo United Residents and Ratepayers Alliance
(Murra) information officer Godfrey Mtimba condemned the intended vehicle purchases
as a case of misplaced priorities.
“This is a typical case
of misplaced priorities. We are currently facing severe water shortages and
other service delivery challenges and they are busy budgeting money to buy
vehicles. They are not sensitive to the plight of residents. We demand water
not pre owned-vehicles,” said Mtimba.
