The Sunday News
Vincent Gono, Features Editor
FOR almost two decades Umzingwane constituency had known no development owing to it being under the guardianship of opposition political representatives.
It is however, only after the 2013 harmonised elections that the constituency came under Cde William Dhewa of Zanu-PF after he wrestled the seat from MDC-T’s Ms Nomalanga Khumalo who had defected from Prof Welshman Ncube-led MDC.
She suffered a protest vote when she was imposed on the electorate and that gave Cde Dhewa an edge over her. Before joining politics, Cde Dhewa, a war veteran had served in the army and on retirement from the army he worked in the Ministry of Local Government where he was appointed substantive District Administrator in 1998.
He worked in Umzingwane as DA and it was during his stint as DA that he connected with the people and became well versed not only with the political terrain but the challenges that the constituency faced in terms of its developmental needs. He says he had watched the lack of development that characterised the constituency that is the biggest in Matabeleland South province — for his constituency covers the entire district of Umzingwane with a total of 20 wards. The constituency received its share of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) and has started completing projects that were under construction.
The fund is administered by community leaders that include Government departments, council and traditional leaders. It is from the communities that projects are identified and developed according to the priorities of the people. According to Cde Dhewa 11 community projects have been identified under the first phase and most of them have been given deadlines.
Some of the projects include Bayethe Secondary School in Ward 14 that has been allocated $5 000. Work at the school includes plastering and painting staff houses as well as glazing broken window panes on staff houses. Although the school has electricity, some of the teachers’ houses have no electricity and part of the allocation will go towards that.
Another $5 000 has been allocated to Mvuthu High School in Esigodini. The school had no science laboratory, something that was hindering the teaching of science subjects such as Physics and Chemistry.
Although the school is in an urban setup it looked worse than most rural schools in terms of infrastructure and the money allocated is expected to go a long way in improving the school whose infrastructure evidently cries out for a facelift.
A recent tour of the school revealed that the science laboratory project has started in earnest and is expected to be complete by the end of the month.
Speaking during the tour, Umzingwane Rural District Council chairman Councillor Dojiwe Sigola expressed gratitude to the National Assembly member for his development vision. He said all the development projects were in line with the Zim Asset economic blueprint that the Government adopted. He said they have set targets for all constituency development projects that have been funded.
Shale clinic in Ward 8 has been allocated $13 000 that will be channelled to the roofing of the clinic block. This will see the staff also benefiting as their residential houses will also be roofed. Upon completion of this project the community will benefit from the improved health service delivery. In Ward 4 there is Nsezi bridge that has been allocated $5 000 that will see the construction of a slab. This long-awaited development is expected to ease the difficulty faced by people when crossing the river.
“We are happy that we are seeing some development after almost two decades of no positive movement in the constituency. We are working as a team and we want to thank the Government for releasing the Constituency Development Funds (CDF). We sat down with the communities and traditional leaders and agreed on which projects to prioritise and we are working on them now.
“We have for the past days been touring the projects with traditional leaders and Government departments that are providing the expertise assessing the stages and we are very happy that most of them are going to be complete at set timeframes while some will not be very far off the deadline of end of this month.
“We got $44 000 of the $50 000 and we quickly disbursed it to the various projects starting with those that were half-done that needed completion before we start on new ones. The National Assembly member is the one championing the projects. His knowledge of the constituency is amazing as he had been DA for a long time and knows which areas need development,” said Clr Sigola.
His sentiments were echoed by Mr Sindiso Ncube, a village head in Bayethe Ward 14 resettlement areas who said although they were still facing school infrastructure challenges they were happy with the efforts that were being made.
“We are in resettlement areas and like so many rural resettlement areas, we are still faced with basic infrastructure problems. Clinics, schools and other basic rural infrastructure are still to be fully developed,’’ said Mr Ncube.
Cde Dhewa said had the CDF been released a little earlier they could have completed most of the projects.
“We are happy that the funds were finally released and we are moving. Had they been released earlier we could have been very far with development.
Politically we are pushing ahead with the new political dispensation’s urge of fostering unity and setting developmental targets as well as opening opportunities for investments in all areas and sectors of the economy.
“This constituency has a lot of mines. We have How Mine and other mines so we are calling for genuine investors in the area of mining to explore opportunities of setting mines in the constituency. We also urge the Government to continue empowering our youths through regularising the small-scale mining industry so that there is full exploitation of mineral wealth,” he said.
He added that the current political dispensation should be given a chance and called for everyone’s support saying it had shown an unmatched commitment to development.
Cde Dhewa said in terms of farming, his constituency was utilising Esigodini Agricultural College where farmers go for periodic training programmes.
As a result, he said, farmers were never behind in their agricultural activities. He added that they were looking at improving the irrigation on the Mtshabezi Dam pipeline where they were setting a greenbelt.
Although there are a number of other party cadres who are campaigning for the same constituency, Cde Dhewa who is provincial secretary for administration said he was confident he would emerge victorious in the party primaries where he would get the ticket to represent the party and beat the opposition hands down for the second time.
