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Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau

A cocktail of challenges, chief among them poor provision of water and electricity and the unavailability of funds is slowing down the transformation of Beitbridge town.

This has adversely affected the provision of services by the local authority.

Perennial sewer flowing and pothole-riddled roads have become the order of the day and many of the residents are now reluctant to pay rates for non-existent services.

Water, which is one of the key resources for sustainable urban development, has been elusive in this town.

It is needed for virtually every human activity, including household use, agriculture, industry, leisure, and most importantly to enhance the function of the ecosystem.

The provision of sufficient water and preventing pollution, however, are formidable tasks for most local authorities, and for Beitbridge, it appears the situation has become acceptable.

Water woes have become perennial in one of the country’s fastest-growing towns.

This is despite the fact that it lies close to the mighty Limpopo River and the town is also home to one of the country’s biggest water bodies, the 133-million cubic meters Zhovhe Dam.

As a result, property and industrial development have been stalled mostly in the new suburbs, with some people reluctant to invest because of the glaring water challenges.

The few who are building have sunk boreholes and constructed septic tanks to ease water and sewer reticulation challenges.

Though the town has been developing rapidly, water remains a headache for the Beitbridge Municipality.

The local authority has perennially been engrossed in a tussle with the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) over the control of a multi-million dollar water treatment plant.

The city officials are of the view that the water problems might be eased with them managing and controlling their water affairs.

However, Zinwa has refused to budge, arguing the local authority is still green to handle water affairs on its own.

The transformation of Beitbridge into a fully-fledged city has become a pipe dream due to a number of factors, among them the shortage of water and funds to improve on service delivery.

Government has moved a great deal in modernising the once dusty growth point into a rural district council, town, and lately municipality.

This was done under the National Economic Development Priority Programme (NEDPP) introduced in 2007.

One of the first mechanics in Beitbridge and longest-serving post-independence councillors under the Beitbridge Town Board, Mr Robert Elliot, says the challenges affecting the town must be addressed as a matter of urgency.

“To attract businesses, you need to improve on services, especially the provision of water, which is critical for any organisation to fully function,” said Mr Elliot.

“If you want new investors to come in, they need services to operate, these include water, power, and sewerage. These facilities must work, otherwise people won’t come in.”

Mr Elliot said addressing issues of service delivery would help the council generate the much-needed revenue to meet its obligations.

He said the town’s authorities should network with the developer who is modernising the border post so that the town and the border are transformed at the same wavelength.

Mr Elliot served for three terms as a councillor for Ward 1 before the amalgamation of the then Beitbridge Town Board and the rural council, which used to fall under Mwenezi District in the early 1990s.

“During our days, the town board would raise funds through rates and these would be used to develop roads and other services, including housing development,” he said.

“Our major projects were the opening of housing stands in Dulivhadzimu. We would put a slab, a toilet, and a room and sell those to residents. Then the person who bought it would then get titles and extend the property.

“That was a good way to generate revenue because people would pay to get that house and they would extend at their own costs.”

Mr Elliot said the situation in Beitbridge had been worsened by the fact that the local authority was not getting anything from the money generated from the border post.

He said this was despite the fact that the town carried the larger burden of the daily transit population, in terms of providing services and strain on infrastructure such as roads.

Mr Elliot said it was critical for the Government to commit a certain percentage from the revenue made at the border to help the municipality meet its commitments on service delivery.

“This is something that has been tried before and I am sure at some stage the municipality will get something,” he said.

“When the border is fully operational, it usually has huge volumes of human and vehicular traffic. The municipality takes care of these in terms of infrastructure and services, using its own funds.”

The continuous lockdown restrictions, he said, had also affected the revenue generation capacity for most businesses due to reduced working hours.

“For businesses to pay up, the council should deliver,” said Mr Elliot.

“The first thing to do is that if you are paying for a service, the council should supply that service.

“They must fix the roads, the water, and related services. We need water to use during this current pandemic and we need services.”

Mr Elliot said the town had many investment opportunities, but the poor water, power and sewer situation was their greatest undoing.

He said there were opportunities for better business facilities in the high-density suburbs.

This, he noted, could only succeed with the local authority creating an enabling environment for investments.

Mr Elliot said businesses were overtrading in terms of fuel stations, whose number has increased from just two soon after independence to nine.

“When investing, one should look at the business prospects. So, let’s look at zoning businesses around the main highway, which has become a centre of attraction economically.”

Mr Elliot challenged the town planners to work on designs that match modern urban development trends.

The town has been growing in terms of housing development minus industries, and Mr Elliot said the level of investment could be better with adequate and constant services.

He said there were huge investment opportunities in motor vehicles’ workshops and transport and logistics depots.

Mr Eliiot is also one of the first mechanics .