BCC blames economy for housing failure

STAFF WRITER

THE economy is behind the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) failure to complete housing projects in the last two years, at least according to the metropolitan.

Mayor Solomon Mguni, delivering a review of the council performance in the last two years said
nine housing projects which targeted availing 2225 stands grounded to a halt in 2018 due to the ominous economy.

“Council in 2012 started the concept of presale stands where the beneficiaries of the stands paid upfront to raise the capital to service the stands. While the project started very well up to 2017 where a total of 3325 stands were delivered, 2018 saw teething problems, grinding to a halt nine running projects with a total of 2225 stands,” said Mguni.

“Only one project was successfully delivered in 2020, Selbourne Park with a total of 77 stands.

“These stands were sold to those with access to foreign currency. The proceeds from the project were also used to procure imported materials such as bituminous materials to complete all the 10 projects.”

The mayor added that the situation was made worse in 2018 by that contractors demanded hard currency for services.

“The projects were affected by the volatile economic environment which saw contractors demanding hard currency as early as March 2018. In addition, contractors frequently increased prices in an unpredictable manner, while erratic supplies of diesel also impacted negatively,” he said.

“Certain construction components e.g bitumen, explosives etc that were imported made it difficult to finish the project. SI 33/2019 introducing interbank rates as well as SI 142/2019 made it illegal to charge or collect in foreign currency thereby making it difficult to complete projects.”

Mguni further noted that the Covid-19 national lockdown which started late March also contributed to the failure to deliver housing stands.

The city`s housing waiting list is now over 120 000, with less than 20 000 housing stands serviced in the last 15 years.