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Vincent Gono, Features Editor
TREDGOLD building in Bulawayo is where the city’s magistrate courts are housed. It is where both serious and small legal cases are heard, where people are sent to jail for lengthy periods of time while petty criminals are made to perform community service or pay a fine.
It is a building known to determine and or redirect the lives of those who visit it as accused persons, and as such prisoners in prison garb with some in handcuffs and leg irons from Khami Maximum Prison, Grey Prison and various police stations are not an uncommon sight while prison officers with guns are also as common as police officers and lawyers are at the building.
Others will also be milling outside the building wearing white, long and lacy dresses, happy, for it is in the same building that marriages are solemnised and legally broken. In short the building is a hive of activity and those that work in it are not the common public. Their offices demand that they keep to themselves, not that they are extra terrestrial beings but their call of duty requires that they keep a distance from the madding commoners who may want to influence their work.
By nature of the activities that go on at the building and the important people that work there, it is easy for anyone to suggest that it, like any other court buildings in the country should have some aura of reverence but no, Tredgold building is not respected. Its outside is actually more common than any other bus termini in town.
Yes, it is a public building but that should not take away its importance and the honour it should be accorded.
The building is adjacent Innscor food outlets at Leopold Takawira Avenue where hoards of illegal money changers spend the day doing their business with satchels of cash. On the other side that is Fort St, commuter omnibus touts will be shouting Nkulumane, Nketa Mnyoro, Emganwini and other surbubs along the route on top of their voices.
They don’t do it in hushed or stealthy tones to show some respect of court proceedings that will be going on, they do it with reckless abandon and so much derision as if they are at a designated pick-up point.
The building and all that it stands for has failed to impose itself and the illegalities around it stands as evidence of the ridicule and mockery that does not befit its social standing. A Judicial Service Commission employee at the building who spoke to Sunday News on condition of anonymity expressed concern at the development.
“We raised the issues some time back in our meetings and gave some recommendations but nothing has been done up to now by the responsible authorities. Those with the mandate to arrest seem too reluctant to do so but the situation is far from comfortable.
“The noise that the touts will be making is just deafening. It makes one fail to concentrate and our work whether in court or in the office needs a lot of concentration. The touts are really a nuisance and we will continue lobbying the police and city council to act as a matter of urgency,” said the official.
Apart from touts, he said, illegal money changers were a problem too as they make life difficult for people who would have come to attend court.
“All the parking space would be been taken as a number of them now own cars. Some will be plaiting their hair with chairs at various parking spaces as if to say we are not going anywhere while their laughter could also be heard and they disturb proceedings. I think there is lack of co-ordination between the police and the city council because some of these issues are not supposed to take time to deal with,” he added.
He implored the responsible authorities to respect the business of the courts and act saying such a scenario where people do not revere the work of the courts was prevailing in Bulawayo alone and was a cause for the city’s reputational concern.
Police spokesperson for Bulawayo Inspector Precious Simango concurred that touts operating at illegal pick-up points and illegal money dealers that have ensconced the Tredgold building were a nuisance. She said the complaints from the Judicial Service Commission were quite genuine as the touts were disturbing proceedings in courts tussling for customers at undesignated pick-up points. She however, urged a multi-sectoral approach to the problem saying the police, the city council and the courts should work together to ensure there was sanity.
“As police we will not sit back and watch that kind of lawlessness. We will descend on both touts and commuters who board the kombis at undesignated pick-up points. We have been doing that. There is absolutely nothing new but we also need the city council to help us. They should be visible in enforcing council by-laws and clamp all the cars and commuter omnibuses that load at illegal pick up points in the city centre. The courts should also help us by passing deterrent sentences on those convicted,” she implored.
Insp Simango said it was unfortunate that most of the kombis that were doing that were neither members of associations as Tshova Mubaiwa of Bupta making it difficult to engage the individual owners. She also warned the commuting public against boarding kombis at undesignated pick-up points saying they would be arrested.
Private motorists and residents who were interviewed expressed disappointment with the city council saying there was no more order as the kombi drivers were left to do as they please in the city centre.
“These guys are now a law unto themselves. They load their cars anywhere in the city and we are forced to avoid certain roads because their driving is dangerous. They do not consider other road users especially when it is peak hour. Gone are the years when Bulawayo used to pride itself in being one of the orderly and cleanest cities in the country with a unique architecture. Now things are bad and the city fathers seem to have gone on holiday especially when one looks at the way they have allowed illegal pirating and the sprouting of illegal pick-up points in town. They are making life very difficult to law abiding motorists. And as if that is not enough their driving is just too reckless,” said a resident Mr Ray Ndlovu.
He said the city should take advantage of its streets and avenues which were spacious compared to those of the capital and many other cities in the region to ensure they were clean. He said the city father needed to wake up from their slumber and stamp their foot if they were to put the city in its past glory adding that Bulawayo had managed to keep kempt most of its old buildings as part of its legacy, from where its history could be told.
“Recent developments in the city are however, worrying. For the city is slowly giving itself over to a coterie of illegalities with little being done to bring sanity, something that has tainted the reverence the city has worked so hard to uphold. That the economy is pushing people to do the unthinkable is a given but it has to be given limits and not allowed to go on unabated at the expense of the city’s dignity and the law,” he added.
Responding to questions by the Sunday News BCC public relations officer Miss Bongiwe Ngwenya said transport operators using those sites were violating municipal statutes. She said the city council carried out a joint operation from the 20 September 2017 to 22 September 2017 together with Zimbabwe Republic Police and Vehicle Engineering Department where a total of 113 kombis and private pirating cars were accounted for.
“All were impounded to the Municipal Storage Compound. Clearance started on 23 September 2017 and it is still continuing. Some were handed over to VID and others to ZRP. A total of eight were still at the Municipal Storage Yard as of Thursday awaiting clearance. Their owners were yet to produce vehicle registration books and relevant Public Service Vehicle requirements,” she said.
She added that they were having a challenge of resources but hinted on their determination saying they would not rest until the situation returned back to normalcy. She said they have also engaged the courts so that those caught on the wrong side of the law could get custodial sentences.
derick.khumalo