Byo grapples with $160m funding gap
BULAWAYO City Council has a funding gap of about $160 million after it secured a $37 million grant from the African Development Bank (AfDB) for water supply and sanitation projects last year.
Mayor Councillor Martin Moyo said this on Thursday in an interview after a breakfast meeting that was organised by the Project Management Institute of Zimbabwe to mark the International Project Management Day.
He said the City Council had already started drawing down the AfDB grant with some of the water and sanitation projects having taken off.
“We have already started implementing projects such as the rehabilitation of the Sauerstown line (deep section), which was giving us problems and also the rehabilitation of Marvel-Mahatshula line to Aisleby.
“The $37 million we got is really a drop in the ocean because we have got a funding gap of about $160 million for the rehabilitation and refurbishment of our water and sewer infrastructure,” he said.
Cllr Moyo could however not say how much council had so far spent from the $37 million AfDB grant.
“What l know is that there have been delays in starting work on the rehabilitation and refurbishment projects because of shortage of foreign currency to import some of the required materials,” he said.
Cllr Moyo said the local authority was also encouraging the private sector to invest in the city’s water sector adding that even the reticulation of sewer was a service that residents were paying for.
“Sewer and water reticulation are a service that residents pay for so if an investor comes and says l will refurbish this infrastructure, then there is an opportunity for them to get revenue from the users of the facility when it is running.
“Usually if these jobs are done by private players, they are of higher quality because the private sector has the required equipment to do the job,” he said.
Speaking earlier during the breakfast meeting, Cllr Moyo said project managers play a critical role in promoting economic development.
“We look to project managers to salvage us from the maraud of poverty,” he said.
A project management expert from South Africa Mr Jurie Smith in his address encouraged local project managers to embrace Information Communication Technology (ICT) to foster new innovative ideas.
Project managers from different companies and institutions attended the breakfast meeting.— @ okazunga.