The Sunday News
Yoliswa Dube-Moyo, Features Editor
The drive down the Guyu-Manama Road, usually littered by goats, cattle and a couple of donkey drawn carts gets smoother and more interesting once you start approaching the Manama Rural Service Centre in Matabeleland South province.
The service centre is snowballing into a vibrant mix of convenience and expediency.
There you’ll find grocery stores, hair salons, food outlets in various forms, hardware stores, a fuel station with a kiosk and eatery and many other services.
The service centre continues to grow in leaps and bounds with modern houses being built at the residential area.
The licensing of Ntepe-Manama Community Radio Station, which recently went on air and will be commissioned soon, has also attracted investors to the area, spurring even more development.
Government is committed to mainstreaming local languages and promoting sustainable development through the establishment of community radio stations in formerly marginalised areas across the country.
The establishment of the community radio station has been largely viewed as a tool for development.
“We anticipate that the radio station will not only educate and inform us but it will also be a tool for development,” said Ward 20 Councillor, Joram Ndlovu.
In line with the country’s devolution policy, community radio stations give a voice to people who lack access to mainstream media, expedite information dissemination and uphold creative growth and democracy at the community level.
The devolution policy is anchored on values and principles that guarantee equitable sharing of local and national resources including enhancing participation of local communities in decision making processes.
The rehabilitation of the Guyu-Manama Road has also ignited hope for endless possibilities for villagers in the area.
With a good road network, villagers believe more investors will be attracted to the area and consequently offshoot even more development.
It also means ease of access to Manama Mission Hospital, which services the population of Gwanda South and Beitbridge West and acts as a referral hospital for other parts of Beitbridge District, Maphisa, Kezi, parts of Mberengwa and Botswana.
Villagers say the rehabilitation of the Guyu-Manama Road will also improve the transport situation in the area as more buses will be able to reach them, contributing to reduction in transport costs.
It would be even better if the rehabilitation of the road went beyond Thuli Bridge and reached Mlambaphele Border post, they say.
That way, villagers would not have to travel to Plumtree in order to cross the border into Botswana.
A 4,3km stretch from Manama Rural Service Centre to Thuli Bridge is being graded and surfaced.
Ms Rokelitswe Dube, a villager from the area said the rehabilitation of the road would make it easier for people to reach Manama Mission Hospital.
President Mnangagwa
“Now that the road is being fixed, people will now be able to travel with ease to the hospital. We have not had it easy and for a long time, promises of the road being fixed were made with nothing happening until now,” said Ms Dube.
“We’re very happy about the development and believe this is the start of other bigger projects in our area,” she added.
Under the Second Republic led by President Mnangagwa, the Government is scaling up rehabilitation of major roads across the country as a key enabler to business viability and investment attraction.
Developing sound road infrastructure is one of the critical enablers towards achieving set targets under the National Development Strategy (NDS1), the Government’s five-year economic master plan, which spans from 2021 through to 2025.
Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa)
“Having good roads attracts investors. If you notice, Manama Rural Service Centre has developed a lot. There are now commercial and residential stands. People are attracted by this road that’s being developed. There’s hope that this area will be an industrious one and it’ll be easy to access,” said another villager, Ms Nomqhele Sibanda.
She said the cost of goods was high because business owners took into consideration the damage the road would cause to their cars when determining prices.
“Now that the dust road will be a thing of the past, we hope to see an improvement in pricing and general cost of living,” said Ms Sibanda.
The Guyu-Manama Road is being rehabilitated under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme 2 (ERRP2).
In February this year, Zinara set aside $17 billion for the ERRP, which is in line with the ethos of the NDS1 whose main aspirations include infrastructural development as a key enabler to attaining Vision 2030 aimed at transforming the country into an upper middle-income economy.
Gwanda Rural District Council chief executive officer Mr Ranganai Sibanda said the local authority had since submitted plans to the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing to expand the Manama Rural Service Centre.
“We’re pushing for the expansion of the Manama Rural Service Centre in order to improve on the available services in terms of housing as well as the commercial side,” said Mr Sibanda.
“We’ll have high, medium and low density areas. As it stands, there are less than 30 housing units, which are not currently classified. The commercial section will have all the services you can find in an urban set up. We’ll also have fuel garages and the like,” said Mr Sibanda.
He said a budget of $15,5 million had already been drawn up to cater for the servicing of the sewer area.
“Zinwa (Zimbabwe National Water Authority) will provide water services. We came up with the plan for the Manama Rural Service Centre as a way to curb rural to urban migration. Plans are in the pipeline to have rural service centres at Ntepe and Makwe as well.” – @Yolisswa
