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Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, Chronicle Reporter
GWANDA Rural District Council is crafting a five-year strategic plan aligned to the Vision 2030 which will help the local authority to ensure improved service delivery and bring development to the district.

Gwanda Rural District Council chief executive officer, Mr Nkosilathi Ncube said the local authority was in the process of developing the plan.

He said the process started with consultations at ward level.

“In our strategic plan we want to embrace district needs. We have engaged a wide consultation base whereby we have gathered input from as much stakeholders as possible. We started at ward level where we assigned councillors to hold meetings at village and ward level in order to identify developmental areas which the community wants addressed.

“We further engaged other stakeholders that include miners, farmers, the business community, Government departments, traditional leaders among others. A planning team is now consolidating the inputs in line with Vision 2030. We are also incorporating the NDS1 and TSP,” he said.

Mr Ncube said once completed, the draft plan will be submitted to the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works.

He said strategic areas that had been identified included improvement of road infrastructure development, water, sanitation and hygiene, water infrastructure development, comprehensive health infrastructure, diversified agriculture productivity, environmental management and protection of all natural resources, youth development, child protection, education, enhanced diversified agriculture productivity, gender mainstreaming dissemination and research while applying competent scientific and technological advancements.

“We want to align and cast a strategic plan that will be aligned to the ethos and principles enshrined in the National Vision 2030 which intends to establish a prosperous and empowered upper middle class income society by 2030 the old strategic plan lapsed in 2020 but shall be the starting point to cast the preceding one.

“Our plan is to improve the previous strategic plan. We are still serving the same community but our thrust will be different,” he said.

Mr Ncube said the strategic plan will serve as a key point for potential investors and partners.

He said they will engage various partners in order to ensure funding for various projects.

Mr Ncube said the local authority will also find ways to boost revenue collection in order to finance other projects.

“The environment is ever changing technologically, economically among other aspects and as local authority we want the district to remain abreast with these changes. We want the district to become a hub of development. By the time we get to 2025 we want the community to be self-sustainable.

“We are a mining community with both small scale and large-scale mines. We want to identify how best to tap into this resource in order to improve livelihoods. The district is also rich in livestock and natural resources such as mopane worms and we want to identify how best to value add on these resources. Within the next five years we hope to have established a processing factory, developed Manama into an industrial area, improve network coverage and road network among other developmental areas,” he said.-@DubeMatutu