Chronicle Editor
Sunday News Reporter
BUBI Rural District Council (RDC) in Matabeleland North Province has engaged in various infrastructure development initiatives aimed at improving the livelihoods of the communities.
The RDC has been working on improving roads, clinics, and schools to limit the distances that communities walk to access services especially in the resettlement areas. The rural district council’s infrastructural development thrust dovetails with the Government’s vision of transforming the country into an upper middle-income economy by 2030 and the first part is anchored on achieving targets outlined in the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1).
In an interview with Sunday News, Bubi Rural District Council Chief Executive Officer, Dr Patson Mlilo, said they have so far refurbished and graded three roads in the district.
“Bubi villagers are reaping benefits from the infrastructure initiatives that the RDC has implemented. We are working on a number of developments. We have graded three roads, Famona, Mary Ellen and Old Hunters. These have already been graded and we are currently working on grading more others,” said Dr Mlilo.
He said infrastructure development was of paramount importance as it connects households across the country to higher-quality opportunities for employment, healthcare and education. He said the roads were affected by the last rains but thanked the Government for its pro-active approach in fixing them, saying road infrastructure facilitates the efficient movements of people at reduced costs.
He said the district was benefiting from mining companies that were ploughing back to the communities with a Chinese-owned gold mining firm, Ming Chang Sino Africa (Ming Chang) rehabilitating a 25km gravel road as part of efforts to complement Government efforts to build infrastructure.
“If you have a good road network you bring investors into the community and farmers will also have no trouble transporting their produce to market as well as receiving inputs,” said Dr Mlilo.
Dr Mlilo said the RDC has brought smiles to the community by building schools in resettlement areas where learners were walking long distances to schools. He said such conditions where learners were walking more than 10km to school were part of the reasons why there were schools recording low pass rates in the district.
“To avoid having children walking long distances when going to school, we have built Maziyaneni Primary School in Ward 23, it currently consists of two classrooms and two teacher’s colleges and it’s about to be complete,” said Dr Mlilo.
Dr Mlilo said they were in the process of building a state-of-the-art clinic to assist in the healthcare needs of the community.
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