Chronicle Editor
Yoliswa Dube-Moyo, Matabeleland South Bureau Chief
There is a need to scale up development efforts in resettlement areas across Matabeleland South Province and establish schools, health facilities and business centres.
Most resettlement areas in the province do not have schools or clinics, forcing villagers to walk long distances to access these facilities.
In an effort to equitably distribute land, the country embarked on a land redistribution exercise which saw beneficiaries moving to vast tracts of land.
The farms, however, did not have properly established schools, health facilities and service centres.
Gwanda District Ward 22 is one of the resettlement areas where Councillor Marry Mpofu says there has been little development.
“We found the resettlement areas with no schools. We’ve since applied to the Government to build schools in the ward, but the processes are cumbersome and it has been taking a long while. The area has no Early Childhood Development facility, primary or high school. It also doesn’t have a health facility.
It’s a relatively new area and it would seem resettlement areas are not getting as much attention as we would like them to,” said Clr Mpofu.
She said parents had resorted to finding their children rented accommodation in areas such as Colleen Bawn so that they could go to school.
“The children are struggling. They stay at people’s houses, young children who are doing ECD. That’s why we get a lot of cases of children being raped and a lot of the times, the cases go unreported,” said Clr Mpofu.
She appealed for Government to step up efforts to develop the area so as to improve the quality of life for villagers.
“It’s a really sad situation. Some parents opt to go back to their old homes so that their children can get an education.
The ward also doesn’t have a health facility and some women end up giving birth along the way to Silonga, which is far. Some don’t make it, sadly. It’s a big ward which needs a lot of attention. Children have to go as far as Colleen Bawn to access schools. Villagers have to go to Gwanda town to access a hospital. Despite having made our applications, nothing seems to be moving in terms of developing the area.”
Gwanda acting district development coordinator Mr Thulani Moyo said poor planning had resulted in the underdevelopment of resettlement areas.
“Rural service centres in these areas are being planned and supervised by the Ministry of Lands and their planning is not up to standard because they don’t have qualified planners especially for rural service centres. The rural service centres don’t have up to scratch ablution facilities for example.
The road network is also not properly planned. As a result, our resettlement areas look backward. Also, if you look at our resettlement areas, most people there are retired workers. When they go there, their children are left in towns and when they go to these places they go solely for farming.
Those farmers are not keen to develop infrastructure for schools because they say their children are already grown so they’ll concentrate solely on farming.
A good example of such a scenario is Moodspruit where it has taken more than 10 years to construct one primary school block.
When we go there to inquire what the challenges are, they say their children are not there and they have no motivation to build a school,” said Mr Moyo.
He said rural district councils should have a deliberate policy for the construction of a clinic in every ward.
“We’re trying by all means to spread development evenly through the wards,” said Mr Moyo.
Gwanda Rural District Council acting chief executive officer Mr Nkosilathi Ncube said his council had made significant strides to develop resettlement areas.
“People need to understand the term development and which components are being looked at when we talk of development. From a local authorities’ perspective, we look at things like roads, schools, clinics, network boosters and many other things.
However, the most challenging issue has been the establishment of health facilities in these areas. This is something we’re working on as a local authority.
In our last meeting, it was suggested that the establishment of mobile clinics to get services to the people would be more ideal and cheaper in the short-term compared to putting up permanent structures as this might take long,” said Mr Ncube.
He said the local authority had already started working on improving the road network in the district.
“Our major challenge is to do with the network, particularly the Potraz boosters. We wish to have broader coverage so that the network reaches every corner of the district.”
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