BCC to open revenue hall at ZITF

THE Bulawayo City Council has announced plans to open a new banking hall at its offices at the Zimbabwe International Exhibition Centre as a way of decongesting the revenue hall in the city centre.

The council will spend over ZW$74 million dollars to renovate part of their exhibition offices at the ZITF for the purpose.

BCC has a number of revenue halls across the city but most residents especially those who work and do business in the city centre prefer using the main revenue hall in the city.

This has seen long winding queues at the city centre revenue hall.

According to the latest council minutes, financial services director, Mr Tennyson Mpunzi, reported that in order to decongest the Revenue Hall in the city centre, the department was planning to open a supreme cash receipting point at the council's ZITF pavilion.

"The area needed to be refurbished in order to meet the requirements of a cash and revenue collection point," he said.

"The department was requesting for authority to virement (transfer) ZW$61 822,400 capital funds from votes 0005 item 17197 and ZW$12,803,200 from Vote 0005 item 17193 to votes stated below in the 2023 financial period."

Part of the refurbishment work needed include installing air conditioning, fixing perspex covid screen, fix bison board, teller counters, and have stand by generators.

The ZITF company has in the past urged companies to utilise their space at the Zimbabwe International Exhibition Centre as offices to save on high rentals in the city centre but only a few have heeded the call.

This has seen the exhibition area largely remaining a white elephant during the year with companies returning to spruce up their space towards the hosting of the ZITF.