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Michael Magoronga Midlands Correspondent
Government has approved the Redcliff 2019 budget of $21 million which seeks to address the perennial water shortages in the area.

The local authority has divided projects into quick wins and long term projects.

Among the long term projects are the construction of a primary school in Simbi Park, construction of a polyclinic in Torwood and construction of a water treatment plant, as well as purchase of a fire tender.

Redcliff Mayor Clayton Masiyatsva said the 2019 budget is up from last year’s $8 million due to a number of projects the town has lined up, including the need to address the water situation which has been bedevilling the town for a long time.

“We have quick wins projects that we intend to complete within the first quarter of the year,” he said.

“For starters, we intend to install tower lights in our new suburbs, Simbi Park and Millennium Park. In fact, the project is now already 65 percent complete and we intend to finish it in the next month.”

Cllr Masiyatsva said theft of cables and other material have been stalling progress on the tower light project.

For the long term projects, Clr Masiyatsva said the local authority has a huge task of constructing a water treatment plant to curb water challenges.

“We are still in talks with Kwekwe City for them to give us raw water that we will treat before we distribute it to the residents,” he said. “That way, it will be easy for us to control rather than coming direct from Kwekwe to the residence. We are also finding it difficult to be up to date with our water bills.”

Clr Masiyatsva said coking company, ZimCoke, was expected to play a huge role in the water treatment project.

“One of the conditions was that ZimCoke should play a part in improving the water situation in Redcliff,” he said. “We are going to engage private players under the Private Public Partnership (PPP) that Government is advocating for.”

Cllr Masiyatsva said council also intends to purchase a fire tender since the local authority has been operating without one.

“It’s unfortunate that our budget has been approved at a time when inflation has been rising high,” he said.

“We had proposed that each household pay $20 towards the fire tender, but now with this inflation we do not know how we are going to handle it.”

The cost of the fire tender is estimated at $200 000.