THE construction of a state-of-art court building in Gwanda, which will see the
establishment of the country's sixth High Court, has gone past the halfway mark and
is expected to be complete by October next year.
The complex, which will be an eye-catching landmark in Matabeleland South's
provincial capital, Gwanda, is also expected to house about 500 government offices,
a regional and magistrates’ court.
This is one of the key infrastructure development projects the Second Republic
prioritised under the National Development Strategy (NDS1).
It is expected to enhance an effective justice delivery system.
The Minister of Finance and Economic Development Mthuli Ncube toured the project
last week and said the Government is prioritising the Judiciary system as a critical
pillar of development.
The Judiciary system will deliver an effective justice system. This project comes
under the National Development Strategy 1. Building a complex like this one in
Gwanda will decentralise the system and enhance development. The court complex
will have magistrate, regional and High court. This will be sixth high court in the
country to ensure that we have an effective justice system, said Ncube.
This is a huge project and we want to accelerate it and complete it in time," he said.
Judicial Service Commission Chief Director for Finance, Milton Shadaya, said late
disbursement of funds had slowed construction of the court initiated in 2004.
If funds are disbursed on time the construction will be fast-tracked and hit the target
before the target time. The court is moving at a snail's pace due to late disbursement
of funds, we failed to hit our first target, which should have been August 2023
because of limited resources. It is our prayer that funds come in time and have the
court complete by next year," said Shadaya.
The Judicial Service Commission has adopted the digital system for all court
proceedings which will now be computerised.
Last year in May, a web-based management called Integrated Electronic Case
Management System (IECMS), was introduced to catch-up with the dynamic world.
The construction of the court, like many of the previous Government's unfinished
projects, was started in 2004 and stalled due to financial constraints.
In 2019 the government offered a company called Haulong a tender to resume works
at USD1,7 million.
To date more than USD1,1 million has been poured into the project and works
should be completed within the new targeted timeframe.
Elsewhere, in in the province President Emmerson Mnagagwa's administration took
over unfinished civil servants’ houses that were started in 2006 but were never
completed together with Beitbridge's unfinished redevelopment plan.
Today Beitbridge, like the Harare to Beitbridge road is in what could be described as
a Zimbabwean infrastructure Renaissance.
Comments are closed.