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Esinathy Sibanda, Chronicle Reporter
THE $3 million Lupane water reticulation system, one of the town’s biggest projects expected to ensure residents access clean and safe water, is now expected to be complete in January 2019.

The project was expected to be complete by end of this month.

The Lupane Local Board received $3 million from the World Bank last year in November to install a water reticulation system for the town.

In an interview yesterday, Lupane Town Secretary Mr Chalton Moyo said progress was ongoing though due to delays, the system construction which was meant to be finished this month, will be finished early next year. “I am happy to say that 84 percent of the work has been covered so far for the water reticulation system that is being undertaken by Lupane Local Board and the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa). The contractor is on site and work is progressing well although the completion date has been revised from mid November 2018 to end of January 2019 due to circumstances that were not foreseen at the start of the project.

“So far 50 percent of pipe laying has been done in the new high density stands and 100 percent done in the low density stands. People are therefore urged to pay connection fees to Zinwa for the system to be connected to their houses,” said Mr Moyo.

He said initially, the local authority had planned to construct a Biofil sewer system but due to the survey made, it has opted for a conventional system.

“The board opted for a conventional sewer system not the Biofil sewer system which the donor wanted to pilot in Lupane. Unfortunately the donor has not responded to the board’s decision to opt for a conventional sewer system. As a result we are implementing the board’s decision and are currently doing feasibility studies for the establishment of a conventional sewer system,” Mr Moyo said.

He highlighted other projects the town was working on.

“The Lupane Local Board is open for business as it can be noted with the projects we are currently working on. For public lighting we have so far installed 8 solar powered street lights on the Nkayi-Lupane road and have flighted a tender for 20 more solar powered street lights. We are also one of the few local authorities with solar powered Tower Lights at the bus terminus.

“We are reconstructing and surfacing 3,5 kilometres of roads in the old stands thanks to funding from Zimbabwe National Road Authority (Zinara),” Mr Moyo said.

”We are also constructing a Civic Centre. On this project we have done excavations, trenching and stabilisation of the soil so that when the structure is finally put up, the building will not crack or surge given the fact we have Kalahari soils in Lupane.”

He said the town board was working with the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) to set up some structures.

“We have given a flats’ stand to IDBZ for the construction of students accommodation as we now have a university in our area. As more students come in we should be able to accommodate them.

“IDBZ has also been given a Hotel and Conference Centre stand and this project has been acceded to by the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ),” Mr Moyo said.

The town is looking forward to other projects to be rolled out soon such as the state of the art Glow Petroleum filling station to be put up, the establishment of the first abattoir in Lupane and upgrading of the flea market structure after getting assistance from the Lupane West Constituency Development Fund, among others. — @esinathy_essira