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Thandeka Moyo, Chronicle Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council has shot down Zimre’s plans to build hostels for National University Science and Technology (Nust) students in Selborne Park suburb saying the land is earmarked for town houses.

Addressing disgruntled Ward 4 residents on Sunday, Bulawayo town clerk Mr Christopher Dube said council had not approved the construction of any hostels out of campus.

“We have not received any application from anyone intending to build hostels and as far as we are concerned, hostels will only be built inside the Nust campus,” he said.

During the meeting, Reverend Useni Sibanda who chairs the Ward 3 Residents Association described attempts to construct hostels outside Nust as sabotage.

“Such a development will depreciate the value of our properties and expose us to crime. We can wake up with hostels to accommodate 2 000 students and how will we live, what about water and does this neighbourhood have the capacity of housing such a huge number,” said Mr Sibanda.

“We are not sure what is happening as we see people clearing land near our houses and before we know it we will see them digging foundations. We hope the city council will help us stop such before we suffer.”

The latest development comes at a time when the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IBDZ) is planning to build student hostels and staff accommodation at Nust.

The Nust project is part of the bank’s $75 million project to build state of the art hostels at state universities across the country.

The first phase of the project will see construction works being undertaken at Lupane State University (LSU), Nust and Bindura University of Science Education (BUSE). The second phase will target the University of Zimbabwe, Chinhoyi University of Technology as well as Great Zimbabwe University.

The hostels project comes at a time when university students are facing accommodation challenges, which has seen unscrupulous landlords cashing in on the desperate students.

@thamamoe