Bindura proposes $5,2m 2019 budget

BINDURA Rural District Council has proposed a $5, 2 million 2019 budget for road construction, solid waste management and environmental management among other strategic goals, the chief executive officer Dr Savie Munoiarwa has said.

Speaking at a two-day strategic planning meeting in Bindura last week, Dr Munoiarwa said the local authority’s objective was to meet Government’s vision of a upper middle class by 2030.

“This workshop will come up with strategic plan for the next five years. The previous strategic plan ends this year. Local authorities had their own strategic plans which were reviewed to meet the integrated result based management format adopted by Government,” she said.

“There is a new thrust from Government of an upper middle class vision for 2030. We are borrowing from this vision to come up with our vision and activities which feed into that vision. We are looking at the usual areas, infrastructure development, social services provision and environmental management.

“To drive these strategies, we need local economic development which underpins other areas because it focused on investment and income generation which will finance other areas.

‘‘We have a menace in environmental management, unsustainable utilisation of resources. Hazardous gold panning, our communities extract sand at undesignated sites leaving open pits.”

Dr Munoiarwa lamented the economic challenges which she said does not enable some of the strategic plans to be implemented if it does not improve.

“The economic challenged we are having in the country also affect us. There is fuel shortage and it is not possible to do road construction and rehabilitation. Price distortion also prohibits procuring equipment and materials,” she said.

“Things will improve and our plans will be implementable. We are alive to the challenges in the country, our strategies have to attack those challenges and see what we can do in the situation. One of our goals is to have trafficable roads by 2023 and we will educate the community on the importance of protecting road infrastructure which are road signs and drainage system.

“We want to decrease water borne diseases and increase access to portable water within the shortest distance of 500 meters.

‘‘We intend to purchase our own drilling rig, drill 25 new boreholes and rehabilitate 250.”

The meeting was attended by Chief Musana, councillors, Government ministries, business community, parastatals and universities.