By William Milasi
Redcliff town which is eyeing city status by the year 2030 has availed at least 250 hectares of land for the development of a smart city.
Speaking during a tour of devolution projects recently, Gilson Chakauya, Redcliff’s Town Clerk, said the local authority has since forwarded applications for the ambitious project to Central Government.
Gilson Chakauya
“We have 250 hectares of land that has been earmarked for the setting up of a smart city and we have put in all requisite applications through our ministry and the Minister of Local Government is in the process of setting up a working task force which will work with us in terms of implementation of smart city concept which goes in tandem with our vision of us being a city be 2030. That smart city will enhance our operations as a local authority but more importantly, expand our revenue base,” he said.
Chakauya said various investment opportunities can be explored within the local authority.
“In terms of investment opportunities we have a number of investment opportunities we have commercial land, we have land for housing and we also have opportunities around water,” he said.
Currently, Redcliff relies on Kwekwe for the provision of water.
“As you are aware we get water from Kwekwe City, we are in discussions with Kwekwe City and we are engaging almost bi-weekly on this issue of a permanent solution of how they can assist each other so that we do not keep having this long outstanding debt which has accrued over the years. Our intention is for Redcliff to be completely weaned from Kwekwe City it cannot be an overnight process we are in discussions on how they can assist in terms of that separation.
“We also have separation in terms of Zisco itself most of our water goes through Ziscosteel at the moment there is a need for infrastructure separation so that we can be able to stand on our own and at the moment we are doing separation of power so that we can pump water to Redcliff suburb, and Torwood so that they will be getting water continuously. Currently, we are using fuel to pump and that is expensive to maintain sometimes if we do not have enough it affects our pumping capacity,” he said.
The town boss also highlighted that the local authority has managed to attract investors for Redcliff.
“We also managed through smart partnerships to attract several investors. We have an existing investor called Livetouch, they expanded their plant into a new line they
acquired 20 hectares of land and they set up a plant, which will be doing mainly concrete poles, which are used by ZETDC and councils,” he said.
