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Thupeyo Muleya
Beitbridge Bureau
BEITBRIDGE West constituency villagers in Whunga, Ward 11 have started pooling resources together to construct a clinic in the area to address challenges encountered in accessing primary health care facilities.

The Deputy Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage who is also the constituency’s MP, Cde Ruth Maboyi, has joined the community in mobilising material and manpower.

She said there was an acute shortage of clinics and secondary schools in her constituency.

Cde Maboyi said she engaged communities and they decided to work together to fund key infrastructure development projects at the grassroots level.

“The Government is doing its part in enhancing and accelerate infrastructure development countrywide, but as community members, we felt there was a need to be proactive in addressing our challenges with the few resources we can put together,” she said.

“So, what we have done is to organise resources to build a clinic in Whunga to minimise the distance villagers are travelling from Dendele, Mazibeli and Whunga areas to access primary health care facilities at Zezani Growth point”.

The Deputy Minister said so far, the community which is moulding bricks had contributed cement, door frames, and window frames to start the project.

She said major civil works were expected to start as soon as they have the requisite quantity of bricks and related material as advised by building experts.

Cde Maboyi said they will also use the same model to construct a secondary school in Muthangamutshena area in Ward 12.

“We are going to have such projects in all the wards, where we organise ourselves and make contributions to fund the construction of key infrastructure.

“However, we will continue to seek assistance from Government and its development partners to ensure that we address all the key infrastructure deficiencies in our constituency,” said the Deputy Minister.

She said it was important for Zimbabweans in the diaspora and those within the country to put heads together and complement Government’s efforts to evenly spread economic and infrastructure development nationwide.

Cde Maboyi said there was also a need to build more clinics and schools, both primary and secondary in all the rural wards to improve people’s way of life.

The Deputy Minister said they only have one boarding school Zezani High which is equipped with a science laboratory.

“Our idea is to focus on one project at a time, before moving on to other initiatives,” said Deputy Minister Maboyi.

She said the bad state of roads had seen most public transporters pulling off major routes, leaving villagers at the mercy of few private motorists.

“Imagine a situation where we have an emergency and one has to be urgently transported to the nearest health facility in a donkey pulled cart.

“This is bad business. I have since approached the national leadership at the District Development Fund (DDF) to fix our roads as a matter of urgency,” said the Deputy Minister.

The development comes, days after residents of Beitbridge town undertook to raise R200 000 to fix eight grounded vehicles at the local district hospital in the next three months.

Among the vehicles to be fixed by the Friends of Beitbridge Trust, are five ambulances and three service vehicles.

So far one of them which is a Mazda B2200 ambulance repaired at a cost of R13 000 has been handed over to the health institution.