HWANGE Local Board (HLB) has made significant strides towards completing the installation of water and sewer reticulation systems at Empumalanga Phase Four housing project as it forges ahead to fully service the area.
HLB Town Engineer Philip Nguni said about 60 percent of residential stands and houses in Empumalanga Phase 4 have been connected to water.
“We have connected 360 houses and stands out of a total of 548 to water, which translates to about 60 percent of the work we have carried out so far.
“As part of expediting the process we have since gone to tender for the procurement of steel pipes as the area we are working on has a rock outcrop,” he said.
Eng Nguni said installation of the sewer reticulation system was expected to commence soon.
“The sewer reticulation is linked to the installation of the trunk sewer line, so we are in the process of identifying a consultancy to do the designs and thereafter we expect to commence works,” he said.
Eng Nguni said the local authority was looking forward to completing installation of water and sewer reticulation systems before the end of the year or early next year. The delay in the installation of these reticulation systems is a legacy issue dating back to 2009, when the local authority’s previous administration engaged a contractor who somehow failed to service the residential stands in question.
Irked by the delay in servicing, some of the beneficiaries moved in and started construction activities. However, through the intervention of the administration, servicing of the area resumed with the project being funded from the local authority’s coffers.
The local authority started the water reticulation system installation project midlast year after efforts of starting it earlier were stalled due to the Covid-19 national lockdown.
The project has also been slowed down due to the presence of a rock outcrop in the area. The local authority currently relies on manual labour to excavate rocky areas due to lack of the requisite machinery. Hwange Newsletter.
