Beitbridge Bureau Chief
Beitbridge 09 February 2011
The Beitbridge rural district council has committed $2,4 million towards the implementation of capital projects this year inn a bid to foster development across the district, an official has said.
In an interview yesterday, the council’s chief executive, Mr. Albert Mbedzi said the bulky of the projects included; the rehabilitations of clinics, access roads, dip tanks, boreholes, community halls, irrigation schemes and schools among others.
He said besides the $2, 4 million the local authority had also received a total o f $100 000 in form of parliament constituency development funds which will be channeled towards the upgrading of two clinics one in the eastern and western parts of the districts.
He said they also had a food for work programme which they were running in conjunction with the Department of social welfare which will see members of the community working towards implementing some of the developmental projects around them.
The department of Social welfare has availed $193 000 for the food for work programme in Beitbridge district alone.
“We have committed $2, 4million in this year’s fiscal budget towards developmental projects across the district with works on most of them now in progress. Some of the funds will be derived from the development levies and other taxes and rates.
“As a local authority we are urging people to complement our efforts by paying their dues to us so that we remain viable.
“You will realise that most of our infrastructure in the communal areas are in bad shape and we are moving towards repairing them at the same time ensuring sustainable development among the community members.
“We are going to rehabilitate a number of dips tanks, major access roads, schools, clinics and irrigation schemes which form the source of livelihood to the communities in this region.
“The bad state of some of the roads has impacted badly on the availability of transport for the rural community and as a responsible council we are moving towards addressing some of these challenges.
“Beitbridge lies in natural region 5 where crops can not do well under the normal rainfall pattern hence the need to prioritise irrigation farming. In some projects the villagers would have to provide the manpower under the food for work programme.
“Work towards the construction of state of the art clinics at Makombe in, Masera, Swereki and Makhakavule is now at an advanced stage. A community hall is also nearing completion at Chasvingo in ward 3. Our target is to get two thirds of these clinics functioning at full capacity by the end of this month.” he said.
Mr. Mbedzi said apart from using part of the council coffers they were also courting other partners to speed up the rehabilitation of major irrigation schemes that were in a bad state.
He said currently they were working jointly with Care International in repairing the 63 hectare Tshikwalakwala irrigation scheme in the eastern part of the district.
The C.E.O added that they had managed to raise $43 000 through the CAMPFIRE program across the district last year adding that the funds disbursements would be done in the next two weeks.
He said the Tshikwalakwala villagers were set to get the largest chunk of $14 000 for excelling in natural resources management programmes.
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