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Walter Mswazie Masvingo Correspondent
Masvingo City Council will issue land for more than 150 housing units within the context of the 100-day programme that is being driven by Government. The city council will also rehabilitate and maintain over 100 kilometres of the city’s road network, while quantifying the amount of water lost through leakages and pipe bursts.

Acting chamber secretary Mr Vitalis Shonhayi said council had embraced President Mnangagwa’s 100-day plan and was engaging partners to achieve its dream of addressing housing challenges in the city.

“We are working towards achieving a target of developing land for 154 housing units,” he said.

“We are also working on addressing the challenges to do with water supply and rehabilitation of the road network. We have realised that council is losing potential revenue through water leakages and pipe bursts.

“In relation to this, we will carry out an exercise to ascertain how much water is lost and come up with mechanisms to account for the loss in monetary terms.

“After acquiring earth moving equipment for road rehabilitation and maintenance, we are going to attend to more than 100km of road network within the same period.”

Mr Shonhayi said council would intensify efforts to recover all outstanding debts from its clients, saying engagements with Government over parastatals’ bills were in progress and hopes were high that most of the money would be paid.

“We are also working on engaging Government over outstanding bills that some departments owe us so that we will meet all our obligations,” he said.

“The departments sit on a $22 million debt out of the $42 million in outstanding water bills.

“We are devising an effective mechanism to recover the money owed by residents and that includes engaging debt collectors, as well as agreeing on payment plans with the concerned debtors.”

Mr Shonhayi said council planned to increase its revenue collection rate from 67 percent to at least 90 percent.

President Mnangagwa has set a 100-day plan to enhance social and economic order in the country, with all workers in Government expected to work hard to achieve the target.