ZVISHAVANE Town Council has set aside $400 million for the construction of modern flats in Mandava high density suburb.
This comes after the government recently approved the local authority’s $900 million budget.
In an interview with the Daily News yesterday, town secretary Ongororo Mazai said the local authority is aiming at addressing accommodation challenges in the small mining town.
“Our budget has been approved by the government. We pegged it at $900 million. $400 million has been set aside for construction of modern flats in Mandava.
“We want to prioritise construction of the flats so that residents can have suitable accommodation because this has been our headache,” he said.
Mazai said plans were underway to engage contractors to start working on the proposed flats.
“We want to engage a reliable contractor so that work is done as early as possible. We want to avoid unnecessary delays this time around,” he said.
Accommodation has been a headache for the council following the dilapidation of the local authority-owned Majaradha communal flats in Mandava where hundreds of residents stay under squalid conditions.
Majaradha is arguably the town’s largest residential area.
The crisis has also been worsened by the coming in of Midlands State University (MSU) Zvishavane campus, a development which has seen many landlords preferring to turn their houses into halls of residence for students and shunning ordinary residents.
The town secretary added that part of the budget would be used to improve water supply in and around Mandava suburb.
“We would also want to replace old pipes with new pipes to improve water supply in the suburb. At the end of the day, residents will have decent accommodation as well as reliable water supply,” he said.
Part of the money was also set aside for the expansion of the water treatment plant in Dadaya to increase the amount of the liquid pumped.
This would enable the council to meet the growing demand for water in the mining town.