Bulawayo irons out new surveillance system

BULAWAYO City Council management is today expected to deliberate on the roll-out of the Cabinet-approved US$2 million Bulawayo Vehicle Parking Management System.

A video surveillance system will be installed on all roads in the city as equipment worth US$700 000 has already been acquired for the project that will create nearly 500 jobs. The project is a joint venture between the local authority and Tendy Three Investment (Pvt) Ltd, a local company.

In an interview yesterday, town clerk Mr Christopher Dube said the council's management will today convene a meeting to iron out how the investment will be implemented. He welcomed Cabinet's decision to approve the city's investment plan.

"This is a Bulawayo company and we have been waiting for this development for a very long time. We are going to have a management meeting on Tuesday (tomorrow) over the implementation of the project. We were ready (to implement it) and have been ready for too long and in the process we got rusty. Now that this has been approved, we have to restart the process and make sure that everything is well oiled," he said.

City mayor Councillor Solomon Mguni said the involvement of Cabinet in approving the project was in fulfilment of national investment laws. He said the project will improve street lighting while boosting revenue generation.

"The law on joint ventures requires that all such ventures be sent to a Cabinet Technical Committee for approval. We followed due process in the identification of the partner and sent our recommendations to the Zimbabwe Development Agency (ZIDA) and we are glad that the process has been completed in record time. This is one of the projects that we believe will augment our revenue inflows and aid our infrastructure rehabilitation in terms of roads and street lighting," he said.

"We are grateful to the Cabinet for the approval of one of the few interventions that the council is doing to ease the burden on ratepayers."

Tendy Three Private Limited director Mr Bongani Nyathi said his organisation was still waiting to get official communication from the local authority. He said his company was ready to roll out the programme having done similar projects in several cities in the Sadc bloc. He said their parent company is based in South Africa.

"Tendy Three Investment is a Bulawayo company and most of our projects are in South Africa. We have done parking in South Africa, Cape Town, Polokwane; we have done these projects even in Ghana and Angola," he said.

"We would be rolling this project back home. This thing (parking system) has been there before. If you can recall we used to put coins on those machines (parking meters). So, we want to bring it back in a renovated way. It's a system that will tally with the new information communication systems."

Mr Nyathi said BCC approved the company's tender application last year on July 10. Information obtained on the company's website shows that it provides on-street and off-street parking management solutions.

"We value our clients by using our expertise to transform their parking systems into modern smart parking systems. "We work with our clients to create suitable packages for their malls, buildings, parkades and streets.

"Our team that includes technical partners and associates, always gives customers the best quality service," reads the website.

"Tendy Three Investments values integrity, quality and innovation. These are the qualities that set us apart from the rest. We consistently bring superior craftsmanship to every project that we work on."

The company states that it has a staff complement of 5 000 employees.

"Tendy Three Investments (Pty) Ltd is a 100 percent black owned group of companies, some of which were established over many years and have been operating since 2001. Tendy Three Investments (Pty) Ltd is fully incorporated in South Africa and our main operations of late have expanded our foot print into Zimbabwe and Angola.

"Collectively we employ over 5 000 people within the group and have grown trading and operations in various aspects of business. We have successfully positioned ourselves as a supplier of a wide range of quality products and services to the private and public sectors," the company says.