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year’s tariffs and service charges.
The proposed budget was unanimously adopted by all the six councillors during a recent full council meeting.
In an interview yesterday, Beitbridge Town Secretary Dr Sipho Singo said the council came up with the proposed budget after wide consultations with key stakeholders.
He said the bulk of the money will be channelled towards major civil works, which include the servicing of 4 000 residential stands.
“We are proposing a $10 million budget for next year which is largely development-oriented and aimed at consolidating service delivery. There are no changes in rates and service charges.
“We intend to service at least 4 000 residential stands next year so that we are able to reduce the housing backlog and ease accommodation challenges in our town,” Dr Singo said.
He said money had been set aside to fund the tarring of roads linking major business centres with Dulibadzimu Bus Terminus and the border post.
“We also expect a major development in the medium-density area when Zimra starts constructing a block of flats and we will also tar the road in that area,” he said.
Dr Singo said plans were under way to address the town’s major challenges such as perennial water shortage, constant sewer bursts and poor road network.
The Government has allocated the town $11 million for the upgrading of the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) water treatment plant. The project, already under way, is expected to be completed next year.
“In our 2012 budget, we are also looking at adding more tower lights in strategic areas and we hope this will help reduce crime and enable people to move freely without the constant fear of being mugged. We are also going to complete the installation of traffic lights in all the spots that we have identified,” he said.
The local authority intends to construct more market places and factory shells at Siyaso industrial area to accommodate small-to-medium businesses, most of which operate in undesignated areas.
“We have also set aside $2 000 for the greening of the town and we will continue to plant more trees along our highways so that we spruce up the face of Beitbridge and attract more tourists.
“Beitbridge is the face of the country hence it should reflect the beauty of the country,” Dr Singo said.
He said expenditure would be financed by revenue collected through rates, service charges, lease rentals, business licences and money generated from council projects. One of the projects is a state-of-the-art truck port, which generates about R50 000 a month.
The Town Secretary said in an effort to reduce the housing backlog in the border town, the local authority was in the process of servicing 1 500 residential stands in the low, high and medium density areas. The border town’s housing waiting list stands at 6 000.
“We are servicing 1 500 residential stands and next year we will start surveying more land so that in the next four years we are able to reduce the backlog,” Dr Singo said.
The council has also set aside funds to rehabilitate existing roads as well as opening new ones in the new suburbs.
“We will continue to tar our roads and we also want to construct new gravel roads that are traversable in the medium density and Hlalani Kuhle suburbs and we have since purchased our own equipment.
“We also have a challenge in terms of trucks that are passing through the central business district resulting in them damaging our roads, hence we intend to construct a bypass leading to the border post, which they would use,” he said.
Beitbridge has a population of about 45 000 people, with an additional 10 000 in-transit population resulting in pressure on the town’s infrastructure.