By ANDREW MUKOMA
THE construction of the ultramodern Intercity Bus terminus in Livingstone has been completed while the modern market project is at 98 per cent.
This came to light yesterday when Local Government Permanent Secretary, Mathew Ngulube and his Labour and Social Security counterpart, Chanda Kaziya, inspected the two facilities.
Mr Ngulube expressed happiness with the way the works had been conducted.
“We are actually very impressed with my colleague (Mr Kaziya) and work is 100 per cent complete for the bus terminus and it is a very automotive facility and it is a state of art facility and I believe very soon we will start using this facility.
“At the moment it the best bus station we have in the country and there is nothing that can be compared to that. Going forward, we hope to roll it out to other towns,” he said.
Mr Ngulube however said that the construction of the modern market was still going on although it was almost complete.
“For the market, a lot of work has gone in and we would like to comment ZNS and NAPSA for doing very good job here and it is just a bit of cleaning that is going on but it is 98 per cent complete. We
hope in the next week or so everything will be done,” Mr Ngulube said.
On the operations of the bus station where ticketing will be done by NAPSA, and not operators themselves, Mr Ngulube said that operators would be engaged and educated on how to use the facility.
This was after bus operators raised concerns that they had been side-lined and would have loved to deal with the ticketing themselves.
They added that there had not been communications from the local authority and NASPA on the fate of bus operators.
“What we need to do is just to educate the bus operators…off course in the beginning there is a bit of a problem where people don’t understand but we need to move with time. You can’t always depend on real cash in your hands, remember there is Covid-19 now and the cash can spread the disease.
“So, we have to train them and they have to learn. I am sure in few months they will be able to learn on how to use the facility,” he said.
The Permanent Secretary said that all the marketeers who were trading in open spaces would be accommodated in the new facility adding that the council had already come up with a plan to proceed.
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