The Chronicle

BULAWAYO, Monday, July 17, 1995 — Architects working on the Old Bulawayo site have produced scale models of the proposed visitors’ centre which have been approved by the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe and the Minister of Home Affairs Cde Dumiso Dabengwa.

The project manager at Old Bulawayo, Mr Joseph Muringazi, said the visitors’ centre would comprise among other things, a ticketing office, a museum, an auditorium and a tuckshop.

He said the next stage would be the production of working diagrams. This, however, was being delayed by the absence of aerial photographs and topographical maps of the site, which he said were necessary for the diagrams.

Mr Muringazi said they have since taken aerial photographs but were awaiting the topographical map which was being done by the department’s surveyor based in Masvingo.

He said a major second geophysical survey would soon be undertaken at Old Bulawayo while excavation work is expected to start in August.

Construction work would only start after archaelogists had established the settlement pattern at Old Bulawayo and this could only be done after the excavation, Mr Muringazi said.Although work at the site was on schedule, inadequate funding was hampering progress, he said. Mr Muringazi said teams working at Old Bulawayo needed a vehicle of their own as the vehicles presently used by the National Museums and Monuments were not enough.

Meanwhile, Mr Muringazi has urged Ndebeles to assist the department with information that might be used at the proposed theme park. He said there was a lot which the department did not know about the Ndebele people. He said the people can come to their offices with information.