THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) wants Hlalani Kuhle residents to pay $50 monthly for the next five years to raise funds for the servicing of the stands handed over to the local authority by the government last year.
Report by Khanyile Mlotshwa
At a meeting attended by over 1 000 residents at the Hlalani Kuhle offices in Cowdray Park suburb on Saturday, local authority officials promised the residents that if they paid the $50 monthly, they would have access to water in five years.
The area’s councillor, Collet Ndlovu, said in line with the BCC plan, they would not pay rentals for the five years.
“The cost of servicing a stand of 200 square metres is $2 040, excluding offsite infrastructure and $3 800 inclusive of offsite infrastructure,” he said. “Residents will have to pay $50 a month for a period of five years. Residents will not pay rent for the five years as they will be paying money for the servicing of the stands. The money will be collected and taken to a bank account supervised by the local authority.”
Housing director Isaiah Magagula told residents at the emotive meeting that they were attending to a crisis they did not create. “When we came here there were 3 000 doubly allocated stands. There were some stands that were not developed and other stands were yet to be allocated,” Magagula said.
“We decided to solve the issue of double allocations before people fought each other. Some stands were triple and others quad allocated. So far we have solved 2 600 cases of double allocations.”
Engineering services director Simela Dube said for the local authority to solve the Hlalani Kuhle problem, it needed money.
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“It’s true that there is a bit of money raised from those who were previously doubly allocated stands,” he said. “We have about $1,4 million at the moment. In the next two weeks there will be activity here.”
