Victoria Falls seeks city status

THE Victoria Falls Municipality has applied for city status, arguing that its rapid expansion qualified it for an upgrade in its status.

This was revealed by Victoria Falls mayor Sifiso Mpofu during the commissioning of stands developed by CBZ Bank on Thursday last week.

Mpofu said they were waiting for the government's response to their application.

"As you may be aware, the Victoria Falls Municipality is gunning for city status and this desire is premised on the town's rapid growth as evidenced by such projects as this one," he said.

"I have no doubt that, as a town, we have your full support in this endeavour."

In response, Local Government deputy minister Christopher Chingosho applauded the local authority for its desire to expand the resort town.

"We welcome your application as a ministry and we will look into that. We only have six cities in the whole country, that is Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Kwekwe, Masvingo and Mutare. Victoria Falls will be our seventh and that will be a great achievement," he said.

Mpofu further expressed gratitude to CBZ Bank for the quality service they delivered and assured residents that all the stands were for local people.

"The works done in this scheme have set a new standard for the quality of services to be offered by the Municipality of Victoria Falls in the future," he said.

"I want to assure the people of Victoria Falls that all the stands under the scheme are for locals and that no outsiders will be given any preferential treatment and for the avoidance of doubt, at the end of the allocation process, a detailed report will be compiled to ascertain transparency of the whole process."

This came after the housing scheme had been in limbo, as close to 500 home seekers in the resort town were at logger heads with the local authority over land, which they invaded to stop the bank from allocating the beneficiaries, arguing that it had been sold non-residents, among other alleged unsatisfactory processes.

Chingosho commissioned 1 353 high-density and low-density houses and the allocations are still going on.

The bank has since invited willing beneficiaries to apply for mortgage loans from them.

Source: Victoria Falls seeks city status (10/07/17)