Town planners should play a leading role in ensuring that the country attains its goal of becoming an upper middle-income economy by 2030, a cabinet Minister has said.

Addressing town planners gathered for a two day meeting in the capital on Thursday, Local Government and Public Works Minister Winston Chitando said good settlements are a result of good planning.

“If you want a good growth point, if you want a good business centre, a good city or town, you plan for it, hence the importance,” he said.

He said the planning function is the driver of the renewal of any settlements and, failing to plan means people do not know what they want to achieve and how to achieve it.

“So the planning function is very key. Once the plan is there, the next stage will be to say how do we fund it, how do we execute it, but everything starts from there, the planning function,” he said.

“And by the way, when we talk of settlements being upper middle-income status it does not mean that they should have skyscrapers, should have 10-storey buildings, no, it means that the service provision and the quality of life of residents in that settlement has to be in sync with the upper middle income economy.”

Chitando said the days when residents get water from their tapes once a day should end as the precious liquid should be available throughout the day every day.

President Mnangagwa on November 1 last year launched the local authorities blueprint on service delivery, which is expected to drive towards attainment of vision 2030.

Chitando said the idea was not to achieve the Vision in 2030, but by 2030 because some of the critical elements of an upper middle-income economy such as water and sewer have to be achieved now.

New Ziana