adminThe three institutions largely rely on electric powered boreholes to pump water for daily use.
When Chronicle visited the area on Thursday, several pupils could be seen scrambling for water at a nearby borehole while others were forced to fetch water from unprotected water sources such as Umzingwane River.
The Zezani High School headmaster, Mr Ophiwani Ncube, said lack of power at the area also compromised discipline at the boarding school.
“The prevailing power crisis is really compromising on discipline at our school largely because some naughty pupils are now taking advantage of the darkness to sneak out of the schoolyard to commit miscellaneous offences. We also now have a problem of punctuality as pupils have to take turns to fetch water at a communal borehole so that they can bath before attending lessons since our electric powered borehole has been affected by this problem,” said Mr Ncube.
He also expressed concern over fears that pupils were likely to contract water-borne diseases such as cholera and bilharzia as most of them were going to the nearby Umzingwane River to bath.
“We are appealing to Zesa to address this power problem as it also continues to increase the cost of running the school since we are forced to use the diesel powered generator. In fact, we mobilised the local community and raised the money required by the power utility to ferry new electricity poles from Beitbridge town, but sadly they are taking long to address the problem and its almost a month now, despite the poles having been delivered to the site,” he said.
Several poles have also been felled by the hailstorm.
Villagers said they were now forced to travel long distances to grinding mills in neighbouring villages such as Mpande and Tshamnangana due to lack of power.
“We are now forced to travel to Mpande, which is quite some distance to have our maize ground because the local grinding mills are not working due to the power crisis that hit Zezani. We are appealing to Zesa to address this problem as a matter of urgency,” said Mrs Mpho Muleya, a local villager.
Villagers also expressed concern over an acute shortage of transport in the area, saying most of the transport operators were shunning the route due to poor roads.
This reporter observed that some of the bridges along the Beitbridge-Zezani road, which were destroyed by floods, have not been repaired making some areas inaccessible.
Zezani Business Centre is one of the major service centres in the district.
Online Reporter