THE government has urged local authorities to prioritise one project at a time to ensure meaningful development in communities.
The remarks comes amid concerns over the sluggish pace of construction at Vulindlela Primary School in Cowdray Park, Bulawayo, where only four blocks have been completed since the project started four years ago.
Speaking during a tour of the school, Presidential Affairs in the Office of the President and Cabinet permanent secretary, Tafadzwa Muguti, urged local authorities to prioritise one project at a time than embarking on numerous projects, resulting in most of them being left uncompleted.
“I think it’s important for councils to focus on one project at a time. Do one project, finish it, hand it over to the beneficiaries and move on to the next,” Muguti said.
“As I am moving across many provinces, I am seeing that local authorities are trying to do so many projects with the devolution funds.
“So the impact is not felt by the society because obviously the funds would have been split.”
Muguti added that local authorities are trying to do so much with a little a budget.
He also urged local authorities to be agile and not wait for devolution funds.
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“Rather, they should look for development partners and approach banks for their projects,” he said.
Vulindlela project manager Sidumiso Ncube revealed that the school is still not completed due to financial problems.
“We only have four classroom blocks. Each block has three classrooms and that means it’s a total of 12 classrooms. We have a boundary fence and a temporary administration block,” Ncube said.
“We had a few challenges as far as these double storey blocks are concerned, they cost quite a bit compared to ordinary blocks.
“There is a lot of work that goes into the concrete. We are going for double storeys because the land that we have is not much.”
Construction of Vulindlela Primary School started in 2021 with devolution funds.
