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Isdore Guvamombe Reflections

Back in the village, in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve, when a bee perches on your essentials, it takes great skill to kill it without hurting yourself.
This week, the city fathers at Town House seemingly perched much on the genitalia of many by announcing an intention to ban a multifarious array of vehicles from the city centre.
The reaction was so emotional and vicious and it became apparently clear that indeed the bee had perched on the essentials and how to kill it without hurting yourself became the question.
Back in the village, elders with cotton tuft hair would have all the councillors and their support staff at Harare City Council sent goat skinning, while thinkers deliberated on real solutions to the traffic problems bedevilling the city.

In the village, no matter how far you urinate, the last drop always falls at your feet and it seems the goat skinners did not think that they also own vehicles but were in a hurry to prescribe a solution, albeit, a silly one. Do village elders not say however much the buttocks are in a hurry, they will always remain behind? What is the hurry?

Let us find lasting solutions otherwise we remain behind!
This instalment is not suggesting that the CBD be a free for all, far from it. But certainly much thought must be applied for feasible long-term solutions without those at Town House making themselves look silly and thoughtless.

Business in the central business district in Harare is driven by orders delivered by all size of vehicles and that business includes people, who obviously can walk from drop-off points and goods of all sizes some of which require huge trucks and cranes to take to their rightful places.

But some people, whom, it appears to this villager, accidentally found themselves at Town House, have become so clueless and thoughtless that their solution is to ban almost every car that is not a Mini Cooper from entering the city centre.

How silly? Instead of investing in high salaries the city fathers, mothers and sisters and indeed boys, must invest in sub-terrain traffic, railway lines, inter-suburb trains, overhead and skirting roads for those who have nothing to do in the city centre.

At the moment, motorists are forced to pass through the city centre where they have no business but cause congestion, while the city leaders are clueless.
In many cities in the world, where this villager has set foot, city authorities have prioritised and, not only prioritised, but invested heavily in transport systems that decongest the CBD. They have also invested in suburban shopping malls where everything found in the city is also found in the townships. There, people find no reason to go into town.

Councils the world over have also invested heavily in attitudes. Harare residents must be sensitised on the need to avoid unnecessary traffic into the CBD and using outside routes that skirt the city centre. Council should make those roads passable by maintaining them.

From where this villager stands, there are too many people seeing nothing at Town House, we need real people and older. In the village, an elderly man seated on a stool sees much further than a boy perched on a tall tree. It seems to this villager we need more mature thinkers at Town House than the current crop. At this rate those at Town House are actually taking the town back and not forward.

Good thinking tells you that when a man is stung by a bee, he doesn’t set off to destroy the beehives. Never! Yes, the city council is stung by traffic problems but you don’t bar all trucks, or sport utility vehicles and all haulage trucks, including rubbish collecting trucks, I presume.

The village soothsayer, the ageless autochthon of wisdom and knowledge, says his message to those at Town House that it takes a lot of carefulness to kill the bee that perches on the scrotum.
A fool looks for dung where the cow never browsed; the City of Harare is looking for solutions in the wrong place.

This villager has friends and relatives at Town House and is sure they are frowning and wondering why I am hitting my own. But you see, a frown on a goat’s face does not stop the farmer from taking it to the market.

The people of Harare are angry. They are bitter. They have been taken for granted for too long. The council has lost the trust of the residents.
They have great ideas when it comes to lining their pockets but archaic ideas on service delivery. These goat skinners.