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Vincent Gono, News Editor
COWDRAY Park has developed to be the biggest suburb in Bulawayo. It has a population of 75 000 people, according to last year’s national census.
The suburb has 26 000 stands including housing (residential), commercial, industrial and other social amenities.
Although it is by far bigger than most stand-alone towns in the country in terms of population size, development has somehow maintained baby steps. It has remained so elusive and distant.
One would be forgiven for aptly pointing out that a high population concentration minus provision of basic social amenities is equal to high risk of both diarrhoeal diseases and sexually transmitted ones as well. Suffice to say that the Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle section of the suburb has 16 600 residential stands and out of those 9 600 are not connected to sewer. They use Blair toilets.
To suggest therefore that they are in the country’s second largest city and are looking forward to an upper middle-income economy by 2030 will look like one is deriding them, but yes, they are using pit latrines and it answers why the suburb has provided a splitting headache to health authorities as a fertile ground for such diseases as cholera, dysentery and other such diseases embarrassingly and obscenely associated by improper disposal of human waste.
The conditions under which some families are living in Cowdray Park are worse than those in the rural areas in terms of basic sanitation, space and hygiene. For some in the countryside are no longer using Blair toilets, they have developed beyond those basics.
But why has development maintained such baby steps in the suburb especially in the Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle area, with even more problems than suburbs that came later such as Emganwini, Emthunzini, Mbundane and many more? A resident gave some insight.
“Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle came in the aftermath of Murambatsvina and if you remember, Murambatsvina was widely condemned by the opposition politicians who wanted to look like they were pro-people and yet they knew that the Government was only trying to bring sanity and order in the cities and towns after the opposition reign had allowed for unplanned construction of structures in various suburbs.
“The opposition politicians did not know that Government had a plan, for after Murambatsvina, it rolled out a housing project for the affected families where stands were availed for the poor families. Most opposition controlled urban councils refused to acknowledge Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle for the simple reason that it was a Zanu-PF initiative and the servicing of the stands that fall under that name suffered deliberate delays as politics took centre stage,” explained a politically conscious resident who refused to be named.
He said since then the Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle stands became an undesirable foster child of the successive councils and it explains why development has not been reaching the residents. He added that the biggest problem was of people being so forgetful.
“We are suffering from dementia as residents of Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle. Or is it that men are by nature helter-skelter creatures who keep on returning to the same poisoned food troughs despite dead bodies that will be there. How long should we experiment with our lives,” he queried.
He added that the solution was almost given by Professor Mthuli Ncube the Minister of Finance when he was the Zanu-PF parliamentary candidate in 23 August elections, adding that armed with that piece of history the people should know that their Messiah lies in Zanu-PF candidates who understand the history of their challenges.
“We all saw what Prof Ncube was capable of doing but we rejected him. He came with development that we have never seen before in a very short space of time. Now we have a chance to do the corrections, let’s go and do the right thing,” he said.
Zanu-PF candidate for Cowdray Park constituency in the Saturday by-elections Cde Arthur Mujeyi said he was going to continue from where Prof Ncube and the party left.
“In Zanu-PF we share the same development vision and values. We are guided by President Mnangagwa’s instructive philosophy of leaving no one and no place behind and we are doing just that in our development programmes. I am a son of Zanu-PF and I am for development and not structureless confusion,” he said.
Zanu-PF Ward Six council candidate which falls under Cowdray Park Cde Kidwell Mujuru who is also a former councillor in the area said what was needed in Cowdray Park was continuity.
“I am not a stranger to the problems and challenges that the people of Cowdray Park are facing. I was a councillor here from 2019 to 2023 and people can testify that we did quite a number of projects that benefited the communities. There was no water in the Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle stands when I was elected councillor. Council wanted US$3 000 as a development levy and I fought council and the amount was reduced to ZW$400 and now everyone has water. We did 1,2km from Garikai to Caravan.
We built Vulindlela Primary School through Devolution funds, we also constructed a bridge linking old Cowdray Park to the new Cowdray Park. We sank boreholes and started nutritional gardens to help women. So I am saying there is a need for that continuity. Sewer is only at 30 percent in terms of development and I had been selected by Prof Ncube to head the sewer committee that we were working on. And with the outbreak of cholera we just hope we will be spared because our situation is tricky and needs people who are hands-on,” he said.
Bongani Ndlovu