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Fungai Lupande Mash Central Bureau
Cde Douglas Karoro, Member of Parliament for Mbire constituency, still enjoys popularity and has been working on the ground to mobilise the masses to ensure that President Emmerson Mnangagwa wins resoundingly at the forthcoming elections.
With a few days to go before elections, Cde Karoro has described his rivals as comic characters who do not stay in the constituency and who are out of touch with the electorate.
The 46-year-old charismatic politician said he owes his success to people of Mbire who spotted his leadership qualities at a time he had no interest in politics.
He emerged the winner in primary elections with 6 631 votes in a battle against five contestants.
His constituency has 17 administrative wards. However two of them, wards 6 and 14 vote under Guruve North. There are 28 000 registered voters.
“I am humble, I don’t have money but I have love for my people and my constituency. I stay in Guruve but it is rare to find me home. Every day I am here with my people. I go to Parliament yes but I rarely go on Mondays. I go on Tuesday and come back on Thursday so that I get time to be with people here,” he said.
“I make sure that every week I meet with people from my constituency and they value that. I have an experience in resource mobilisation from my 10 years’ experience as a development worker and with the new dispensation I will do wonders for Mbire. The same donors I worked with when I was at a non-governmental organisation called Lower Guruve Development Association (LGDA) are still willing to work with me.”
Cde Karoro said mobile network connectivity is bad in his constituency to the extent that doctors at Chitsungo Hospital search for a high spot whenever they want to call for an ambulance.
“Our mission hospital Chitsungo is currently operating as a district referral hospital in ward 10. The hospital has no network connectivity to the extent that doctors go on top of an anthill when making calls.
“Patients end up dying due to failure to call an ambulance. Its difficult to handle emergency cases without good communication network.
“Some wards also don’t have network, making the community lag behind in terms of development. I talked to NetOne and Econet and they responded favourably. Former NetOne chief executive officer, Reward Kangai sent his teams to survey areas and set up network boosters. After he was fired we went back to square one. We are starting again but the progress is slow. I will sleep at NetOne offices if I may, to ensure that the situation is rectified.”
Human-wildlife conflict is still a major challenge in the area leading to death and injuries of locals. People still find it difficult to till their land and walk freely around the area.
“Elephants and lions are a major problem and we are appealing to Parks and Wildlife to assist the community. Our hopes are with them but they don’t have resources like vehicles making it difficult for them to attend to reported incidents. I end up using my vehicle and it’s dangerous because I am not trained to deal with such situations,” he said. “The elephants move in herds and they are destroying crops. This leaves farmers vulnerable. Government must capacitate parks especially those working in areas like Mbire, Binga. They need adequate resources.”
On the issue of roads, Cde Karoro said the Mahuhwe-Chidodo is the worst followed by Mahuhwe-Kanyemba and Mahuhwe-Mushumbi via Chitsungo.
“These are the major roads that lead to the border with Mozambique, Zambia and to the hospital,” he said.
“We also face water challenges but I want to thank the Government for their effort in easing the challenge. We have earth dams that are under construction and we were given cement. This will help our livestock, fisheries and garden projects,” Kororo said.
“We need more boreholes. Five are being drilled now. We need more clinics, people walk about 30 kilometres to a clinic. We want at least one clinic in every ward.”
Mbire has the highest number of child marriages and Cde Karoro said this could be attributed to long distance secondary pupils travel to school.
“We need more secondary schools. School children travel for about 12 kilometres to school. Parents don’t know what happens on their way to school. We have NGOs like Camfed which are helping the community with awareness as well as providing schools fees, uniforms and stationary,” he said.
Despite all these challenges, Cde Karoro said there has been splendid developments in his constituency.
“Bridges which were swept away 15 years ago are now under construction. I used my 2017 constituency development fund to buy furniture, building material for 23 schools. I promise to continue using resources transparently,” he said.
Born in Chidodo in ward 5 Cde Karoro did his primary education at Chidodo Primary School and went to Mavhuradonha High School for his ordinary and advanced level.
“I did temporal teaching for two years from 1995 to 1996. In 1996, I went to Seke Teachers College until 1998. In 1999 I started teaching at Mahuhwe Primary School for three years and I joined a non-governmental LGDA,” he said.
“At LGDA we were doing humanitarian programmes including food aid, primary healthcare and I was amongst the team that developed proposal of sourcing for funding. We had school feeding programmes in all the 34 primary schools in the district per every school term and the surplus food was given to the community.
“I worked at this organisation for close to 10 years and I became popular. When things started getting difficult and NGOs were no longer getting funding I decided to go back to Government and start teaching.
“This is when I was approached by the people asking me to represent them in Parliament. I refused at first because I lacked the knowhow of politics.”
He said at this time he had no interest for politics.
“Later, I was convinced and submitted my curriculum vitae in 2012 for the 2013 harmonised elections. I was disqualified due to lack of experience in the party. I went home and rested.
In 2015, following the expulsion of David Butau from the party, by-elections were declared in the constituency and I submitted my CV again and won. I only had a district position in the party at that time. Now I am a provincial member and chairman of Mbire constituency in the party.”
Cde Karoro is married to Nyarai Mawisire and they have four children.
Online Reporter