GWERU mayor Josiah Makombe has said the local authority’s
lawyers are working to recover money paid to a Chinese company to instal solar
traffic lights, but failed to complete the project, leading to the council
terminating the contract.
The municipality awarded the contract to Drewland, the
Chinese company, in 2013 with a target of installing solar-powered traffic
lights at 16 intersections in the city at a cost of $500 000.
But when council terminated the contract over
non-performance and sought to recover the money, Drewland challenged the move. “Our legal team is working on getting what was paid to the
contractor,” Makombe told a Press conference last week.
“Our traffic lights are not working and some intersections
have not been installed with solar traffic lights after the contractor failed
to complete the job.”
Five years ago, the council moved to replace all the
traffic lights in the central business district with solar-powered ones
following regular power cuts.
The project also sought to reduce power costs incurred by
the local authority from the electricity-powered traffic lights.
Meanwhile, Makombe said council would soon start installing
street lights in the city. Many street lights in Gweru have gone unrepaired for
over 10 years, exposing residents to muggings by criminals, especially at bus
terminuses at night. Newsday
0 comments:
Post a Comment