Terracotta clarifies Egodini employment issue

THE developer who is working on the rehabilitation of Basch Street Terminus commonly known as Egodini in Bulawayo — Terracotta Private Limited — has said it will not be employing a majority of people who will be working at the project but this will be done by various contractors that have been engaged.

There has been a lot of speculation regarding the employment of people on the project with a number of hoax social media messages circulating announcing the recruitment of workers at the project which is expected to cost $60 million.

In an interview with Sunday News from his South African base, a Terracotta representative, Mr Thulani Moyo, said there had been a lot of misconceptions peddled by unscrupulous individuals regarding the employment matter, which he said was unfortunate and needed to be clarified as a matter of urgency. He said as Terracotta they would be employing just a handful of individuals as the main developer. Most workers will be engaged by the various companies that have been contracted to do renovations.

“What people are forgetting is that we are just a developer and we have engaged a number of contractors that we will be working with. It is these contractors that will do a majority of the employment. While these contractors have no obligation to employ because they are already established companies, we have taken into consideration what people and various organisations have been saying through our stakeholder engagement meetings. This is why, working with the contractors, we are in the process of establishing a jobs and business centre within the site,” said Mr Moyo.

He said at the job centre, people will be able to leave their curricula vitae, which the contractors will then consider when there are openings. At the business centre, Mr Moyo said sub-contractors can also leave their company profiles for consideration by the contractors.

“The idea is to create a database where we will be referring to whenever we need people to work on the site. This is something which we did not just come up with from out of nowhere but it is the very organisations that we have been continuously engaging with who suggested this concept.

“We expect the contact centre to be ready in the next two weeks. People have been accusing us as Terracotta of causing this whole chaos but the truth is, it’s the leadership of the organisations who have been part of the stakeholder engagement meetings who are not disseminating information to their membership. This is a straightforward matter,” said Mr Moyo.

He warned people not to fall prey to unscrupulous individuals who would go around purporting to employ people who will work at the project, emphasising that this will only be done through the on-site contact centre.

“This is a long process which is not just an overnight matter, as most people think that is why we have been holding all these stakeholder engagement meetings. When we have finished renovations at the contact centre, we will invite council and the national government so that they have an understanding on how the employment will take place,” said Mr Moyo.

Council recently closed the Egodini terminus in preparation for the commencement of Phase 1 construction works. Since then there has been anxiety over the project and speculation over job opportunities.