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Municipal Reporter
Harare City Council is re-designing the Glen View Home Industry complex that was gutted by fire last week to cater for access roads, sanitary facilities and other amenities that make it easier for traders to operate. The fire destroyed wares worth millions of dollars and put close to 5 000 people out of business.

Acting Town Clerk Mrs Josephine Ncube last Friday visited the complex and met with the management committee of the complex to chart the way forward.

She said the city would initially pave gravel access roads, collect a new database of operators, provide new ablution facilities, increase the number of hydrants and ensure that business at the complex resumes as soon as possible.

Operators will be allowed to continue trading while the facilities are being restored.

“The city will work with the management team and all traders at the complex to ensure a speedy resumption of operations,” said Mrs Ncube.

She said the city’s waste management team would this weekend begin clearing the complex in preparation for revamping it.

The city council has set up a team to oversee the reconstruction of the complex.

Glen Norah B councillor Mr Herbert Gomba proposed the setting up of the team in a full council meeting on Thursday, saying a lot of families were deprived of their only source of income, hence the need to urgently attend to the matter.

The city officials said they were awaiting a forensic report to ascertain the cause of the inferno.

The affected traders have since returned to the complex and some could be seen doing their work like carpentry in the open after their cubicles were destroyed by the inferno.

Some were destroying the remnants of the cubicles which were extensively damaged by the fire.

Mr Tongoona Panganai said they had no other source of income, which forced them to return to their work stations under the “difficult circumstances”.

“Council should come in and assist because we were being charged $3 per month for security and $1 for every ware sold, but we don’t know what the money was being used for, council should therefore come in and run the complex,” he said.