Bulawayo — Council says an acute shortage of surveyors has seriously affected the city's expansion plans and delayed the implementation of long awaited housing projects.

According to a recent council report on ongoing property developments, the land surveyors department, like many council operations has been crippled by a severe brain drain.

It is council policy that all new residential suburbs should be fully serviced with water, sewer and roads before any housing development can be undertaken.

Bulawayo's population estimated at over 1.5 million has been rising steadily since independence pushing the need for housing higher.

The city also recently came up with a new master plan that saw its boundaries widening by more than 45 kilometers.

"The land surveyors' department had a critical shortage of surveyors," reads the council report.

"There is no final examiner and principal land surveyor to do approvals. With most of the work at the final stage, it would take quite some time before it is finally examined and approved."

The local authority, which is still struggling to raise money from rates and tariffs following the dollarisation of the economy, said it can not afford private surveyors because their charges were beyond its reach.

"Private land surveyors needed US$90 per hour to do the final examinations and approval. The department is however trying its level best to negotiate for a possible review of the fees," read the minutes.

The surveyor general in the Ministry of lands, Edwin Guvaza, said the shortage of surveyors was not peculiar to Bulawayo and urged the municipality to find innovative ways of dealing with the problem.

"There is no way the council will overcome this problem besides having its own personnel," Guvaza said.

"It will help the council a lot for it to offer competitive salaries as failure to do so would be disastrous.

"If the council decides to sub-contract, the private sector would have to charge them fees that are worse than having your own personnel."

Guvaza said US$90 charged by private surveyors was the most competitive rate that applied in neighbouring countries.

"The tariff is approved by the ministry (after consultations with the rest of the regional market).

"It might sound too high but this is what the market in the region charges for private surveyors," he said.

"This is a fee that was gazetted in April and if the council is saying the rate is too high, then they are saying the government erred in accepting a regionally-accepted fee, which is a problem on its own."

Meanwhile, the council's allocation for the construction and maintenance of roads from the department of roads has been slashed to US$254 000 from US$ 700 000.