The Sunday News
Vincent Gono, Features Editor
CYCLONE Dineo that later downgraded to a tropical storm has come and gone but it refused to do so unnoticed. It has left its own share of problems in the communities and the country at large where its effects are still being quantified and put into monetary value.
A lot of important infrastructure was destroyed by the resultant floods and the southern parts of the country were the worst affected.
Major roads were damaged, big bridges swept away while some were left in bad shapes, schools, clinics and homes were also seriously affected if not washed away. In short the rains had debilitating effects on the country and its infrastructure most of which was crying out loud for renovations.
Not that the Government is not aware of the need to spruce up or facelift the infrastructure but times are hard. The resources are inadequate.
Amid the talk of repairing the damage at national level, there is a need for urgency to avert serious long term problems capable of seeing most rural communities suffer amid the historic volumes of rain received this year.
While there is a general appreciation of the amount of damage that was effected on the country’s infrastructure by the rains, focus has been concentrated on major dams, roads and bridges but little or no attention has been paid or is it given to the damaged infrastructure in rural communities.
As a result, a number of infrastructure especially dams and bridges in the country’s rural communities have not been visited by the authorities to assess the amount of damage and probably do the costing evaluation.
The communities therefore feel ignored. They feel neglected and cry out to the Government to make sure they are not forgotten as most of the destroyed infrastructure has a direct bearing on their lives in ways only understood by those that appreciate rural life.
While there is nothing bad about Government giving priority to major roads and bridges in the country, there is also nothing bad about assessing the amount of damage rural communities have been left with after the rains and perhaps allocate resources to enable them to reconstruct the affected infrastructure.
Rural communities visited by the Sunday News last week spoke grimly of the effects of this year’s rains which they said were historic in amount and in their destructive nature. Dams from where the rural communities in Matabeleland were living off were destroyed, bridges linking different rural communities swept away while gravel roads were washed away into gullies.
In Malindi Village ward 14 in Matobo District in Matabeleland South Province Hlabano Dam commonly known as, Midlo, which used to provide water to the rural communities for their day-to-day life was swept away. The dam according to the village head Mr Willie Dube was almost full but now the amount of water left could hardly sustain them up to the end of May.
Mr Dube told the Sunday News that the dam wall was swept away and the water also washed away all the gardens that were downstream and strategically positioned close to the dam for easy access to watering.
The area being in the ecological Region Five is one that is not bountiful in terms of crop production but is suitable for cattle. It is by any measure one of the dry areas in the country where most rivers can hardly last a season. And what it means for the cattle rearing villagers is that the cattle no longer have sufficient water to drink and to them it is a cause for a splitting headache.
Those intent on building would also use the water for making bricks while fishing in the dam and gardening was for all villagers close to it. In other words the dam was the only reliable source of water off the rainy season in the communities of Ward 14.
“We were very happy seeing the water levels rising every day with the historic amounts of rain received this year. It gave us a lots of hope as it meant to us that we were going to have abundant water to last us to the next rainy season or beyond.
“However, events of a single night two weeks ago plunged all our positive hopes and happiness into depression as the wall that joins the spill way collapsed and all the water escaped from the dam with a fierce roar that could frighten even the most alert cockroach in the house. It was by God’s grace that it happened in the quiet of the night, otherwise had it happened during the day it was going to be tragedy as cattle, donkeys, goats and even humans were going to be swept dead by the large quantities of water after the wall collapsed. So the water only managed to sweep away all the gardens that were down stream and all those that were close by. No life was lost and no home was affected,” said the village head, Mr Dube.
He added that their biggest worry was the lack of interest by the authorities in making sure the dam was repaired despite it being very strategic to the rural communities as the only reliable water source for other uses other than human drinking.
A villager Mr Ndele Ncube said it was their domestic animals that were going to suffer as the lack of water in the dam meant that they would water at Antelope Dam close to Maphisa Growth Point which was a distance away he said.
He said had the communities given heed to his call to plug the leakages where the dam wall that is entirely a heap of soil, is joined to the cement and stone spill way, the collapse might either have been avoided or at least delayed.
Matobo District Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr Elvis Sibanda said in an interview that they were yet to assess the amount of damage that was caused by the rains in the district. He confirmed though that Hlabano Dam was one of the most strategic water reservoir serving the communities.
“The dam is very critical to the community. You will realise that it was used for gardening, fishing and especially for domestic animal watering. The rains came and washed away the gardens while some dams, schools and boreholes were affected. We are going to carry out an assessment of the damage and come up with a figure. On Hlabano Dam we are going to engage various stakeholders but currently we have engaged Oxfam and we are still doing the planning. It’s in the initial stages,” said Mr Sibanda.
He confirmed the community’s fears that they were not going to have enough water for their domestic cattle among other worries.
The situation is just the same in Insiza where Insiza South National Assembly Member Cde Malachi Nkomo told the Sunday News that a lot of repairs needed to be done in his constituency as part of reconstruction after the rains damaged a lot of infrastructure. Most areas in his constituency have become impassable while some have been completely cut and isolated from the rest of the constituency by bad roads that have grown from being bad to rivers, streams and gullies that are no longer navigable even with a wheelbarrow. He said the estimated cost of the bridges and dams that have been damaged in his constituency runs into millions of dollars.
Dams such as Croft, Ndube, Mkhaya and Mavukuboya have varying degrees of damage caused by the rains while bridges were badly affected too.
Cde Nkomo said due to the damages on Kalani Bridge the distance from Mbondweni to Filabusi that should be 15 km was now 100 km as travellers were using a longer route, while day pupils from Ekusileni Mission, a Catholic boarding school were finding it difficult to cross to school as the canoe that they were using was swept away in Silalatshani Dam.
“The situation that we are faced with in as far as infrastructure is concerned is one that is not very pleasing. Most of our infrastructure was swept away by the rains and the villagers are suffering. School children are affected too and Government should move with speed to assist in such areas where basic rural life support infrastructure has been damaged. The rural life is supported by such things as cattle, gardening, and so many other things that require water and when the sources of water are no longer there then it spells disaster.
“Movement from one area to the other is also grossly curtailed because the bridges were swept away. There is a need therefore to inform the Government that it’s not only the bridges and dams that service towns and cities but the rural communities too so that they are given equal focus in resource allocation.
“We have a situation where there will be abundant pastures but no water for cattle to drink and people do not have enough food in their fields as a good number never got time to plant while some of the crops were affected by the rains,” said Cde Nkomo.
Cde Johnson Langa, a community leader added that while there was nothing wrong with Government focusing on more national projects, an equal measure of attention was also required in fixing the damages in rural communities so that they do not feel forgotten. He said the effects of the cyclone were felt worse in countryside than in urban areas where most roads were tarred saying in some cases rural gravel roads no longer existed, instead impassable gullies have replaced them.
