LUVEVE MP Ntandoyenkosi Mlilo (Zanu PF) has said Cowdray Park resembles a rural set-up and needs modernisation due to lack of necessary amenities such as toilets, electricity and clinics among others.
BY NQOBANI NDLOVU
Mlilo said the Ministry of Local Government and Bulawayo City Council were now consulting to come up with a roadmap with a view to modernising the high-density suburb, which falls under Ward 28.
“Ward 28 is more of a rural set-up in an urban environment. This is characterised by Blair toilets, no electricity, no access roads and communal taps for water,” Mlilo said.
“I am happy to say that I have met and sat down with the Minister of Local Government (Saviour Kasukuwere) and plans are already under way to avert a looming health disaster.
“As we speak, the ministry is in consultation with the Bulawayo City Council to come up with a roadmap for eradicating de-urbanisation in Cowdray Park,” Mlilo told Parliament in his maiden speech on Tuesday.
“Ward 28 has a small four- roomed house which is being used as a clinic.
“This house came as a donation from a building contractor but it is failing to service the continuously growing community.
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“I therefore would like to appeal to the Ministry of Health and Child Care to make plans to build and commission a referral hospital as the current population in this ward cannot be adequately serviced by a clinic,” he said.
The Zanu PF legislator also appealed to the government to intervene and assist pensioners who were struggling to get their monthly pension payouts.
He said wards 15 and 16 of Luveve constituency had many pensioners who had sorry tales to tell over their failure to access their pensions.
“The senior citizens’ biggest challenge is accessing their pensions. Most have gone countless times to the Government Complex Building in Bulawayo to make applications for their pensions and come back with nothing but promises,” he said.
“Those who are lucky to have money end up commuting to Harare to get this done.
“I would like to make an appeal to the relevant minister to make some moves of either decentralising the current system or alternatively investigate and implement desired solutions to these problems.”
Bulawayo has suffered the brunt of the economic collapse of the last decade and in 2013 President Robert Mugabe described the city as a scrapyard.
