BY NQOBANI NDLOVU

EGODINI Mall developer Terracotta (Pvt) Limited has reportedly been forced to change or amend some structural designs of the mall to cut costs owing to the punishing hyper-inflationary environment.

A progress report to the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) town, lands and planning committee by Terracota reveals that the company has been severely affected by a number of challenges such as the increase in interest rates, inflation and currency changes resulting in it re-designing some parts of the project to cut costs.

“Notwithstanding the challenging environment, works on site have been progressing at an acceptable rate. Due to the prevailing economic situation, the developer has amended certain design elements to mitigate against higher costs that can’t be passed onto tenants,” Terracotta’s report read.

“The sudden introduction of the Zimbabwe dollar in June 2019 as the sole legal tender meant that all arrangements (e.g, bill of quantity, construction contracts, procurement contracts, lease contracts) had to be revisited to enable continuation of planned development activities.

“With inflation last reported as being more than 150%, the project has experienced challenges with suppliers and sub-contractors who are unwilling to price for periods longer than seven to 14 days. This has introduced significant challenges in terms of procurement and budgeting. Under such circumstances, it would not be unreasonable to suspend construction works.”

The project, valued at $60 million, is on a build, operate and transfer basis and will come at no cost to council, reports have said.

The local authority will ultimately own it once Terracotta has recouped its investment.

“As with any capital project, debt funding is a critical component to fund the project to final completion. When civil works commenced, interest rates were between 10% and 12%.

However, these were suddenly increased to as high as 50% as part of the ongoing fiscal reforms.

“This has expectedly had an adverse effect on the phase 1 project programme to completion,” the report read.

Construction of the mall by the South African engineering firm took off last year after several false starts spanning over a period of five years.

BY NQOBANI NDLOVU

THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) says it has started repossessing several properties, mostly residential, deemed to have been abandoned after having gone for five years without any bill payments.

Town clerk Christopher Dube told Southern Eye that the properties would be sold after a month unless their owners show up and settle all outstanding payments to council.

“We are saying you have not been paying for the past five years, which means you have abandoned the property, or that land. We want the owners to claim those properties and if they don’t in the next 30 days, we will be left with no option but to take those (properties) to the sheriff for sale so that we recover the monies due,” he said.

According to a notice issued by Dube yesterday, hundreds of properties in the city are due for repossession by the local authority after being condemned as abandoned, with the owners nowhere to be found.

In the notice, he said failure to claim the properties would result in council disposing of the said properties in terms of section 5 of the Titles Registration and Derelict Lands Act, Chapter 20:20, which reads: “Whenever there remains due and unpaid for the space of five years any rate or assessment payable to any municipality or other public body upon any immovable property in Zimbabwe and such property is abandoned, deserted and left derelict, and the owner thereof cannot be found, it shall be lawful for the person or body claiming such rate or assessment to apply to the High Court, stating the amount claimed to be due and the grounds for applying for relief under this Act.”

Bulawayo Progressive Residents’ Association coordinator Emmanuel Ndlovu said council is allowed by constitutional provisions to seize derelict properties.

“Yes, I know there are some provisions that allow the council to seize some derelict properties,” he said.

BCC is owed several millions of dollars in unpaid rates by ratepayers with government also being one of the debtors.

A harsh economic climate characterised by skyrocketing prices of basic goods and services has further incapacitated ratepayers’ ability to pay their tariffs, but the local authority has indicated that it has no option, but to increase rates by about 700% in the next four months — if approved by the parent Local Government ministry.

BY NIZBERT MOYO

BULAWAYO transport operators have snubbed the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (Zupco)’s offer to partner them in the urban mass public transport system, citing unworkable conditions that will throw most of their drivers and conductors out of employment.

Tshova Mubaiwa chairperson Atlas Moyo told Southern Eye yesterday that they failed to reach a consensus with Zupco authorities this week as it was a take it or leave offer.

“The conditions are impracticable and tantamount to give employment to other people from outside Bulawayo as we are supposed to surrender our vehicles to Zupco so that they will look for their own drivers who are likely to come from outside the region,” he said.

“We were told that we will have to surrender our kombis from 4am to 10pm and they become Zupco property during that period and they will only give them back to us in the event of a breakdown.

“We have said no to this. Anyone who will agree to this deal will have to cease to be under our association.”

Moyo said they were invited by Zupco authorities on Tuesday to discuss the matter and after failing to reach an agreement, they advised the owners to meet with the officials.

Transport operator Keeper Ndlovu said they were waiting for the finalisation of the meeting with Zupco Government is reportedly trying to rope in commuter omnibus operators under its comprehensive urban public transport system, a situation that will result in reduced fares for city dwellers.

The Zupco franchise has since been reportedly extended to urban commuter omnibus operators in Harare, where passengers are charged $2 for a local trip that is pegged at $4 by operators who are not on the scheme.

Zupco acting chief executive officer Evaristo Madangwa said he was in a meeting and would call back later yesterday.

Divisional operations manager Tineyi Rwasoka had on Wednesday told the media that they had managed to register 18 omnibuses under the Zupco programme.

He said a trip will cost $2 and indicated that the majority of operators were reluctant to join the scheme citing differences over operating conditions.

“We have since registered 18 kombis and we expect them to start this evening (Wednesday). However, we are struggling to engage more operators, especially those from associations as they are not happy with what we are offering,” Rwasoka was quoted as saying.

Moyo, the Tshova Mubaiwa chairperson, said only three kombis out of over 600 joined the scheme.

He said they were required to surrender their vehicles to Zupco on condition that each kombi will be given two drivers on a shift basis and they would be paid by the owner.

BY VANESSA GONYE

The country’s health system has reached alarming levels as major referral hospitals have reached their lowest rate of service delivery.

During a tour of Harare Central Hospital on Wednesday, NewsDay observed that some wards were closed as there were no patients, with the health institution reportedly only admitting serious and urgent cases.

In one of the wards, only five out of 28 beds were occupied, proving the dire situation at hand.

Health minister Obadiah Moyo blamed the worrisome sight to the ongoing and prolonged strike by doctors who are demanding favourable working conditions, before resuming work.

Speaking during the tour, Moyo pleaded with the striking doctors to return to work while a permanent solution was being mapped out.

“What we are seeing today is the effect of withdrawal of labour by doctors, leaving the hospitals to accommodate critical cases. We are not at the optimum regarding the return of doctors, that’s why I keep calling for their return,” he said.

“It is best to be able to work while we negotiate. We are encouraging our doctors to come to work as we negotiate. We will follow the law to the last detail. We shall make sure that we are guided by the law.”

Added Moyo: “I want to encourage the doctors to return to work. NatPharm keeps replenishing drugs in the hospitals, though we are currently having problems with stocking chronic illness drugs as an order has been placed for the restocking. We want people to return to work and see a fully-stocked work station.”

He urged the doctors to steer clear of political influence as they committed themselves to saving lives.

“We don’t want political influences in our professional sphere. We are here to save lives, not to end up doing things that we were not trained for,” he said.

The Labour Court last week declared the strike by doctors as illegal and ordered the health practitioners to return to work within 48 hours, but the doctors refused to budge, citing incapacitation.

BY NUNURAI JENA

Shielded from prosecution for over 10 years now, former Zanu PF legislator for Magunje, Francis Ndambakuwa (52), is finally going to stand trial for attempting to kill two MDC members ahead of the infamous June 2008 presidential election run-off.

Karoi magistrate Godfrey Mavenge has set November 13 as the trial date for Ndambakuwa and his eight co-accused.

It is the State’s case that sometime in June 2008, Ndambakuwa, Peter Banda, Joel and Cherai Zvikonyaswa, Nickson Dzimiri, Onisimo Bandera, Rungano Pangiwa and Chamasi Mhande went to Shungu and Peterson Kwenda’s house and shot the two using firearms.

The complainants were seriously injured and Peterson’s leg had to be amputated following the shooting.

Ndambakuwa is also facing other charges of malicious damage to property after setting Kwenda’s house on fire on the fateful night.

The nine accused persons were not represented.

Tanyaradzwa Makamanzi prosecuted.

The late former President Robert Mugabe was the sole candidate in the bloody June 2008 run-off after the late MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who marginally won the first round, withdrew from the race due to alleged State-sponsored violence.

The opposition said over 200 of its members were killed, while thousands others were maimed and raped.

BY ELINERA MANYONGA

A 28-YEAR-OLD Harare man and six accomplices, still at large, used machetes and iron bars to gain entry into a house and raped a woman before making off with a Mercedes Benz, US$4 100 and various goods.

Honest Mufutumari was yesterday not asked to plead when he appeared before Harare magistrate Rumbidzai Mugwagwa, who remanded him in custody to October 30.

The court heard that on October 6, at around midnight, the accused and his accomplices forced open the complainants’ kitchen door to gain entry into the house.

They approached the complaints, who were asleep, and force-marched them to the lounge where they ordered them to lie facing downwards.

One of the robbers raped a woman once in the bathroom without using protection.

Two other robbers took another woman into the storeroom where they sexually assaulted her before stealing six cellphones, two laptops, a sub-woofer, a Dstv explorer decoder, an Africom WiFi modem, 42 inch Samsung television set, two DvDs, two suitcases with baby clothes, US$4 110 and $600.

They also defecated in a bucket full of mealie meal, loaded the stolen property into a CLK Mercedes Benz vehicle belonging to one of the women and fled from the scene.

The women reported the matter at Southlea Park Police Station and Mufutumari was arrested on October 15. He was found with three cellphones belonging to the women and also led police where he had dumped the stolen vehicle, leading to its recovery.

BY VENERANDA LANGA

Members of the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZiMA) yesterday asked Parliament to revise the Coroner’s Office Bill as it has some clauses that could impose punitive measures on doctors in the event that a patient dies in their care.

The issue came out during a public hearing at Parliament Building by the Misheck Mataranyika-led Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice on the Coroner’s Office Bill.

If crafted, the Bill provides for establishment of the Coroner’s Office, responsible for investigating all deaths that come about as a result of unnatural causes.

It also seeks to create an independent and fully-fledged office to effectively and impartially investigate unnatural deaths.

Sylvester Nyatsuro, a ZiMA member, said there was need for the legislation to protect the medical profession from any undue prosecution should a patient die in their hands.

“As a profession we deal with death, some patients recover, but on a significant proportion, some may die, and when a Bill like this comes before Parliament, we need to ensure that we protect the medical profession,” Nyatsuro said.

“For example, in the United Kingdom, I actually participated in a number of coroners’ inquests. I was a general practitioner and one of my roles was that if a patient died, I needed to explain to the coroner and then he would take over and investigate. The coroner’s interests are that he wants to know the causes of death.

“The lessons learnt are that if we introduce this Bill with punitive measures, it will be difficult for medical practitioners to practice. We should allow the coroner to gather information and make recommendations because most of us are in the medical field to help patients.”

Another ZiMA member, Christopher Samukange, suggested changes to different clauses in the Coroner’s Bill.

For instance, Samukange said Clause 5 of the Bill, which says that the coroner and the deputy coroner must be appointed by the President, must be changed.

“I would like to suggest that we delete ‘appointed by the President’, and, instead, say that the coroner and deputy coroner will be appointed in the same manner that judges go through public interviews so that the appointments are transparent,” he said.

On qualifications of the coroner, he said for example, in the UK most coroners were medically qualified.

The Bill stipulates that for one to be appointed Coroner-General, they must hold a qualification in forensic medicine, forensic pathology, forensic science or any other relevant qualifications.

Samukange also said that Clause 6 must clearly outline whether the fiscus will create a fund to fund the coroner’s office.

He said the Bill must not give the Home Affairs minister the power to stop an inquest on deaths — whether at hospitals, prisons, and other places.