eBusiness Weekly
Kudakwashe Mhundwa
Zimbabwe’s leading mobile services provider Econet Wireless, has struck a partnership deal with the City of Harare for the modernisation of First Street to meet global city standards.
As part of the deal, the mobile service provider will be responsible for revamping the street to bring it back to its glory status through the introduction of several technological hubs.
First Street, which lies in the heart of the Harare, has over the years deteriorated as a result of cracked pavements, illegal vending, litter as well as street kids who have taken residence in the area.
This has seen several property owners raising concern over loss of property value.
Econet manager demand and portfolio, Farai Mutyasera, said the company will create digital information booths, build properly laid out vending kiosks, surveillance canopies among other facilities which will enable the glory status to be brought back to the city.
“There are 12 key deliverables, which we are looking at and this include street lights, information booths, surveillance systems, digital screens, wifi hotspots, sanitation, renovations of pavements, curbs and sitting areas to bring back the ambience back to the city.
“Information is essential for governance transparency as well as for citizen participation, so the proposal is to provide smart digital information booths which can be deployed along the street, these booths would provide digital touch screens and they would allow for interaction between the citizens and the city fathers.
“The city is able to disseminate information and on the same booth we can have the various businesses along First Street displaying information on promotion. We are also geared towards bringing large screens in the City of Harare which will be able to play pertinent information, advertising and city infomercials as well as human interest subjects.” he said
“Another proposal is to create digitally smart kiosks which allows citizens to settle their electricity bills and rates, build smart, properly laid out vending kiosks and provide modern city benches.”
Mutyasera highlighted the company will also be creating surveillance canopies which will feed into the revamped police post in First Street.
“Surveillance is critical and the proposal is to build a canopy system of cameras in the street, with cameras which are connected to artificial data system which will be linked to police posts and criminal offenders will be quickly apprehended. Part of our plan is to also build a new modern police post in First Street which will have modern monitoring screens.
“Lighting is critical to the security of citizens as they go about their business, the scope is to deploy new energy smart streets solutions which can be developed into a control system where smart sensors deployed can manage the light,” said Mutyasera.
“We also plan on redoing the toilets around First Street and Jason Moyo.”
This comes as the city of Harare has been making calls to landlords in the Central Business District to spruce up their buildings in a bid to clean up the city and increase property values.
