Chronicle Editor
The history of Bulawayo can never be complete without mention of Makokoba, the city’s first black township.
The vision to have a full-blown township tourism sector in the country can only come to life in places like Makokoba. Places with rich history and culture.
Unfortunately, Bulawayo City Council does not take Makokoba seriously, it does not take the people of Makokoba seriously.
This is why residents of the oldest suburb are sitting on a health time-bomb.
Effluent flows from burst pipes into their homes, leaving them prone to water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid.
Garbage is never collected; cleaning and maintenance work is never done.
Like most areas in the city, the population has swelled over the years, bringing a lot of strain to existing infrastructure. In Makokoba, this problem is worse because Rhodesian settlers built the area for male labourers who would leave their families behind in the rural areas or their countries of origin.
About 18 000 people live in about 4 800 houses, most of them single bedroom bungalows or hostels with shared amenities.
As we reported yesterday, our news crew visited Makokoba on Wednesday and observed that in some parts, pipes were spewing effluent into houses with children playing in pools of raw sewage.
At Siphambaniso residential flats, sewage was flowing through the street and some of it was seeping into nearby houses.
Residents said the sewer reticulation system was so bad that if a person upstairs flushes a toilet, the raw waste is discharged into kitchens downstairs.
Along 11th Street a manhole was gushing sewage, while piles of rotting garbage lay uncollected along the same street.
Disgruntled residents accused BCC of neglecting its duties which could result in the outbreak of water-borne diseases such cholera and typhoid.
Sadly, this would not be the first time that council’s neglect results in disease outbreak.
The infrastructure in Makokoba is among the oldest in the city.
There is a lot of work to be done in Makokoba. Council can actually have a maintenance team based there, just waiting for distressed calls.
In all honesty, the township needs an overhaul. Not just to protect lives but historical infrastructure too.
Places like Stanley Hall and Square, MaKhumalo and MaDlodlo beer gardens, Efusini and Emkambo Market are a big part of Bulawayo’s history.
Amakhosi’s Township Square Cultural Centre can also be a tourist attraction on its own.
Where the centre stands is a place of significance pre-colonisation, as a flowing river provided a good harvest of reeds for Ndebele maidens during the Umhlanga ceremony.
If Bulawayo City Council really cared about Bulawayo, her people, her history, her culture and her legacy, it would not neglect Makokoba.
Not only Makokoba, but many other landmarks, but today, we are only talking about Makokoba.
The people of Makokoba deserve better, Bulawayo deserves better.
Online Reporter