Council hostel upgrade begins

MASVINGO City Council has started upgrading old hostels in Mucheke suburb that will benefit more than 150 households as part of targets set under the 100-day plan by authorities in the country’s oldest town.

The upgrade is being done in phases and seeks to improve ablution facilities at the hostels where families were living under a communal model.

The old hostels in Mucheke were constructed for low-income workers during the colonial era.

The city’s director of Housing and Community Services Mr Levison Nzvura said council was working flat out to improve the living standards of the families.

“We are doing this project in phases using internal resources and the speed at which work will be completed depends on the availability of funds, so at the moment we cannot exactly state when the work will be completed, but it will be very soon,” said Mr Nzvura.

The city engineer Mr Tawanda Gozo said council wanted to reduce the density of families sharing a single toilet at the hostels.

“We are focusing on upgrading ablution facilities so that we move away from the existing communal setting where a whole hostel shares a single toilet,” he said.

Town Clerk Mr Adloph Gusha said the upgrading project was overdue, but work was being slowed down by a shortage of funds.