adminVincent Gono, Features Editor
THE National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) said it is operating on a shoe-string budget and has been failing to spruce up and bring uniformity to the country’s 10 provincial Heroes’ Acres as well as taking care of the external national shrines in Zambia and Mozambique.
This comes amid complaints that the Government was neglecting the provincial Heroes’ Acres most of which are an eye-sore due to lack of regular maintenance making the shrines look less important and unreflective of the history they are supposed to tell.
Concerns have been that the provincial heroes’ acres are only remembered, spruced and visited during the Heroes’ Day insinuating that they are of no national value as they are characterised by overgrown grass while most of them have no perimeter fence to keep away intruders.
In a telephone interview with Sunday News on Thursday, NMMZ director Dr Godfrey Mahachi said the failure by his department should not be interpreted to mean that those who lie there were less important.
He said it was their wish to have uniform standards at all provincial Heroes’ Acres adding that the way the provincial Heroes’ Acres were designed and developed was not according to their plan.
Dr Mahachi said this was so because the department was facing serious budgetary constraints and had been unable to spruce up the shrines as regularly as possible and bring uniformity in terms of standards.
“I am aware of the state of our Heroes’ Acres, it is not good at all. But we are doing everything we can to make sure they are up to standard. We have serious challenges of financial resources.
“As you may be aware we have been moved from the Ministry of Home Affairs where we traditionally belonged to, to the Ministry of Rural Development, Preservation and Promotion of Culture and Heritage. We have had meetings with our Minister Cde Abednico Ncube and we hope we are going to do something about it.
“We normally use black granite and would have wanted all the graves to have it but that is not the case currently due to lack of resources. We really want these important shrines to look presentable so that the history that is associated with them is not wished away by their state but regrettably we have not been able to do that because of funding challenges,” said Dr Mahachi.
He said in the absence of the black granite they use concrete but they would be distorting the standards which he said should be uniform.
“We are looking at more than $1 000 per grave and if you count the number of graves that we are supposed to work on in the 10 provincial Heroes’ Acres we have in the country we will come up with millions. We are also looking at external shrines such as Chimoio and Nyadzonya in Mozambique and Nampundwe and Freedom Camp in Zambia so we have got quite a lot on our plate.
“If the issue of resources is addressed we will really look into all that,” said Dr Mahachi.
He said in some cases they were helped by families who could afford to buy the black granite and they do the job something he said explains the lack of sequence in the upgrading exercise.
The NMMZ director said they were also taking care of the National Heroes’ Acre in Harare although he hinted that it was not so much of a problem in its maintenance and security.
He said the Heroes’ Acres were among the many other projects that his department was tasked with superintending such as monuments, museums and other national historical places.
The sentiments come at a time when the country is preparing for the Heroes’ and Defence Forces holiday next week where the country remembers the gallant sons and daughters of the country alive and the departed who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of the country as well as cherish the good work of the defence forces whose major role is to provide security and guard the country’s independence against post-colonial tendencies.
Online Reporter