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Conrad Mupesa Mashonaland West Bureau
The current Level Four lockdown put in place to arrest spiraling Covid-19 cases has brought to a halt work at Chinhoyi’s new Judicial Services Commission (JSC) building currently under construction.

Completion and official opening of the building was earmarked for early this year with the visit by Chief Justice Luke Malaba last November to assess progress, showing how the contractors were rallying behind the deadline.

Speaking to The Herald, JSC’s head of communications and corporate affairs, Ms Rumbidzai Takawira who confirmed slow-paced progress at the multi-million dollar project as having been caused by Covid-19 and the current lockdown said there was no date for the official opening of the building yet.

She said the building will be officially opened at a date to be announced once construction and all the work is completed.

“There is no date yet for the official opening and for now, progress has also been affected by the lockdown. Communication on the official opening will be advised,” she said.

The building has suffered several backlashes since its first days of construction in the 1990s but, the coming in of the Second Republic in 2017 saw drastic improvement to the building which had turned into a white elephant.

However, while efforts were there to complete the project last year, the early Covid-19 lockdowns derailed progress.

Despite the hurdles, the contractor and his subcontractors increased pace at the site which was then above 80 percent in December last year.

Ms Takawira said most work at the site had been done including window glazing, installation of kitchen appliances, electricals among other important areas.

During the tour of building, Chief Justice Malaba who was up beat that the judicial complex will be completed soon, requested for an alternative water solution to avert council’s water service delivery that is constantly affected by power outages and theft or vandalism of transformers.

Meanwhile, Karoi Magistrate Court was closed for one week to make way for disinfection exercise.

“In the meantime we have closed Karoi Magistrate Court for a week to make way for disinfecting following positive cases of COVID 19,” Ms Takawira said.