Story by Tendai Munengwa
OVER 100 fire tenders have so far been received under the Zimbabwe-Belarus deal to capacitate urban and rural local authorities with fire and road carnage equipment.
The country’s firefighting departments have over the past years struggled to attend to fire and road accidents, owing to either obsolete or lack of equipment.
This is now a thing of the past as the Second Republic moves to bring more fire tenders from Belarus to equip local authorities and ensure they can react to fire incidents and other accidents.
“We have brought in 114 Red Lion fire tenders which have been distributed to all provinces. To make sure that engineers and operators grasp how this equipment works, we have invited all local authority representatives to come and get training on the maintenance of these fire tenders, we hope the fire tender deal plugs the firefighting gap,” Bison Agro Machinery’s Director Andrei Kleinov said.
Speaking after a training session to maintain the fire tenders held at Bison Workshop in Harare this Friday, representatives from all local authorities thanked the Second Republic for the noble intervention.
“We could not deal with fire over the years because there were only few old fire tenders in the country but now this will be the thing of the past as all local authorities are equipped with fire tenders,” Epworth Local Board’s Chief Executive Officer Dr Wilton Mhanda said.
“We have come here to collect our own fire tender for Chirurndu we were incapacitated because whenever we had an accident, we would wait to get one from Kariba which was not a normal situation to react to fire, so with this fire tender, we can now attend to fire with speed,” Chirundu Local Board’s Procurement Secretary Fidelis Songozo said.
Several towns and cities have over the last months received new fire tenders, as relations between Zimbabwe and Belarus continue to grow.
