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Mashudu Netsianda in Beitbridge Senior Reporter
BEITBRIDGE Town Council has unveiled a $9,5 million budget for 2015 with tariffs and service charges remaining the same. The proposed budget was unanimously adopted by all the six councillors during a recent full council meeting.Beitbridge Town Secretary Loud Ramakgapola said council came up with the proposed budget after wide consultations with the local business community and residents.

He said the bulk of the money amounting to $2,9 million will be channelled towards major capital and civil works, which include the installation of pre-paid water meters, the servicing of 2,107 residential stands and the construction of 650 low cost housing units in partnership with local land developers.

Ramakgapola said the local authority did not want to strain residents as it wanted to concentrate on care and modernising the town through various capital projects.

“Our 2015 budget statement has a total income of  $9,590,473 and a total expenditure of $9,505,683 giving a surplus of $87,900,” Ramakgapola said.

“We intend to service at least 2,107 residential stands at a cost of $824,000 next year so that we’re  able to reduce the housing backlog and ease accommodation challenges in our town and we’ve engaged partners such as Simon Duncan Partnership, FORIT construction company and ZB Bank to develop low cost houses for low income earners.”

He said $635,000 had been set aside to fund the installation of pre-paid water meters.

Ramakgapola said plans were also underway to construct a multi-million dollar shopping mall and the local authority had engaged Earthset, a local company, to start the project in 2015.

“As a growing town we need to manage our water resources properly. We therefore need to install pre-paid water meters because the usage of water is very high due to our geographical location as a busy border town and we believe water is high revenue earner, which is why we want to install pre-paid water meters,” said Ramakgapola.

He said the local authority owes Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) more than $7million. Zinwa supplies bulk water to the local authority.

“We’ve set aside $360,500 to purchase earthmoving equipment so that we tar our roads and we’ve also budgeted $324,881 for storm drainage as a way of managing and protecting our roads from being washed away by rains,” he said.

In our 2015 budget, we’re also looking at adding more tower lights in strategic areas and improve lighting so that we help reduce crime and enable people to move freely without the constant fear of being mugged.”

The local authority intends to construct a bus terminus for cross-border buses and a new hospital under a Build-Operate and Transfer (BOT) concept.

“We’re also looking at developing a new hospital and Dr Patrick Tigere, a gynaecologist who is based in Louis Trichardt is our partner. A lot of our people, especially pregnant women, are forced to travel to South Africa for treatment and our objective is to address that problem by setting up another health facility in the border town to stem the tide,” said Ramakgapola.

One of the projects is a state-of-the-art truck port, which is set to generate about R50,000 a month.

“Our 2015 budget nurtures our vision, which is to become a modern investor friendly municipality providing sustainable excellent services to its community by December 2018,” said the town secretary.