BY SILAS NKALA BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) has grown its cattle herd to 526, and several goats, while it also has 2,5 hectares of sorghum as it embarks on farming ventures to get more revenue.
This was revealed yesterday during an assessment of BCC business entities by a six-member council business committee.
Residents had called on council to find other means of earning revenue instead of relying on rates in order to improve service delivery in the city.
Ward 9 councillor Donaldson Mabutho (Citizens Coalition for Change, CCC) told Southern Eye that his business committee comprising six councillors and the city economic developer went on an assessment mission to find out what was happening in the council business units, including farms and commercial entities.
“Our first port of call was our farms. We found out that there are 526 cattle which are bred by the City of Bulawayo. We have Boer goats, and our ordinary Matabeleland goats. We also discovered that we have sorghum crops which cover about 2,5 hectares,” he said.
Mabutho said they also toured Ingwebu Breweries to assess the ageing machinery, production levels, and the plans which are there to operate the firm to full scale.
Bulawayo CCC provincial spokesperson Swithern Chirowodza challenged his party’s councillors to help the city invest more in business units.
“It is our desire that such businesses are run profitably and competitively in order to lower the costs associated with service delivery. Residents will then bear half of the service delivery costs. It’s simple but strategic,” Chirowodza said.
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In the run up to the March 26 by-elections this year, Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga told Zanu PF supporters at a rally at Silwane Grounds in Pumula that the opposition was failing to manage council business entities in order to generate income.
Chiwenga said this was burdening residents through payment of hefty rates.
He also accused councillors of parcelling out land among themselves, and for abusing council-owned properties before urging the residents to vote for Zanu PF council candidates.
However, all the eight wards in the city and two parliamentary seats in Bulawayo went to CCC.
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