Gwanda council to lease beer gardens

GWANDA Town Council is set to lease its two beer gardens MaNkomo and Phakama, owing to viability problems that have resulted in the entities incurring disappointing losses, an official has said.
The council passed the resolution to get rid of the entities during a heated full council meeting on Wednesday last week.

In an interview Gwanda Mayor Lionel De Necker confirmed the development saying councillors have since ordered council management to come up with a draft proposal on how to recapitalise the two institutions.

"The business continues to perform below expectations resulting in serious viability problems. This has led to us reaching a decision that they (beer gardens) should be leased. They have been making serious losses and we cannot continue with that burden this year," said Councillor De Necker.

Added the mayor: "We are looking at addressing the problems affecting our beer gardens in two ways: we will either privatise them or look for an interested partner and that is what the management is working on. After the draft has been completed we will open a tender process inviting interested people."

Commenting on the prospects for 2012, Clr De Necker said councillors have ordered the council management to ensure that council resolutions were implemented on time.

"The year 2012 is a period of progress and we want to ensure that significant work is done in as far as service delivery is concerned. It is now the duty of the council management to see that sufficient revenue this year is collected and channelled towards service delivery ahead of anything else," said the mayor.