Gweru – The Gweru City Council has turned its controversial uninhabited mayoral mansion into a staff Covid-19 quarantine centre, an official said on Friday.

So far, about 10 Gweru city council workers, including four nurses at Mkoba 1 and Senga clinics, have tested positive for Covid-19.

City council spokesperson, Vimbai Chigwaramusee, told New Ziana the massive mayoral mansion would be turned into a quarantine centre for municipal workers infected by Covid-19.

“Covid-19 knocked on our doors while everyone is facing hardships and some are failing to find places to go for self-isolation and council went on to renovate the mayoral mansion and turned it into a quarantine centre,” she said.

“We have more than 10 council workers who have tested positive for Covid-19 and none of them have been deployed at the mayoral mansion for isolation, for they have their own places for self-isolation,” said Chingwaramusee.

But residents in the leafy Kopje low density suburb, where the mayoral mansion is located, have expressed reservations about council’s decision, fearing this could spread the disease in their area.

“We are not in support of the council’s move, Kopje is a residential area with many residents and making the mansion an isolation centre puts us at high risk of contracting the virus,” said a resident.

Built in the late 1990s, the mayoral mansion has been lying idle since 2008 when the then executive mayor, Sesel Zvidzai, vacated the property when his term lapsed.

There have been plans to turn it into a High Court or a lodge in order to generate revenue for the local authority.
New Ziana