Khupe homestead an oasis in Bubi ‘desert’

Politics
SOME drove into Inkosikazi, Village 1 in Bubi in the latest 4x4 vehicles while others arrived on bicycles and donkey-drawn scotchcarts.

SOME drove into Inkosikazi, Village 1 in Bubi in the latest 4×4 vehicles while others arrived on bicycles and donkey-drawn scotchcarts.

Report by Njabulo Ncube

But the majority sauntered on foot into what is dubbed “the ideal homestead”, the rural home of Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe, who doubles up as the deputy president of the MDC-T.

The brick-and-thatch homestead — comprising a main house, guest lodges, an outside kitchen and eating place — which can host a gathering of more than 100 guests, rivals suburban homes in any of Zimbabwe’s so-called leafy suburbs, Burnside (Bulawayo) and Borrowdale (Harare), for instance.

Schoolchildren and other idle youths that lined the dusty and gravel road leading to Villager 1 could not help but marvel at Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s convoy, as it drove at break-neck speed towards Khupe’s homestead.

Villagers waved the palm, the MDC-T slogan, and ululated as the Premier and his entourage announced their presence.

The value of latest models of vehicles parked outside the DPM’s homestead runs into several hundred thousands of dollars if not a couple of millions. They included latest Mercedes-Benz, Jeep Cherokees, Range Rovers, BMWs and a whole range of latest Nissan and Mazda types.

Parked next to some of these state-of-the-art vehicles were the donkey-drawn carts, the transport of necessity and not of choice for the majority.

For some of the locals, it was the first time to see at close range, Tsvangirai and other Cabinet ministers, among them Theresa Makone, the Home Affairs co-minister, that had made a beeline to their impoverished village, which falls under Zanu PF MP Clifford Sibanda.

The VIP tent was packed with chauffeur-driven diplomats, government officials, civil servants, journalists, MDC-T activists and other political hangers-on. “We are grateful to have our daughter appointed to such a powerful position. If it wasn’t for that, this road you travelled on would still be gullies,” Thomas Nkomo, a villager said. Nkomo was part of the villagers that thronged Khupe’s homestead on Friday to attend a field day, where the DPM showcased a self-funded and striving drip irrigation scheme.

Nkomo (70) was making reference to the recently-graded gravel road to Khupe’s village, about 10km from the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls Highway, where a drip irrigation project at the homestead has turned the dry semi-arid area into an oasis of green cabbages, tomatoes and maize.

Shrugging off accusations she is complicit in the alleged factionalism and ethnicism reportedly bedevilling the MDC-T, Khupe chose instead to restrict herself to the business of the day — tendering her lush garden of vegetables and maize. When probed by journalists, she refused to discuss MDC-T internal politics and her alleged opposition to a coalition.

“Let us discuss the business of the day,” she said, evading questions. “My priority today is to show fellow villagers that there is potential among us to uplift ourselves.”

Khupe revealed that she established the first drip irrigation scheme in Matabeleland after being inspired by a similar scheme launched by her boss Tsvangirai at his Munikwa village in Buhera.

She said Tsvangirai had been pushed to the limit by the late Nketa legislator Seiso Moyo, the late Deputy Minister of Agriculture, to initiate an agricultural project that would make local communities self-sufficient.

“This project is in part a tribute and a thank you to Seiso Moyo,” she said. “This is a personal project to show people that as individuals we have the potential to uplift ourselves. But as we spread the drip irrigation projects and the use of other alternative sources of energy such as biogas, which I have started at my homestead, an MDC government will have to chip in to help the rural poor as we move to empower the people.”

The DPM added that the drip irrigation scheme and other alternative sources of energy showcased at her home dovetailed into the MDC-T’s recently-launched Agenda for Real Transformation. Khupe expects to reap rich returns from her cabbages, tomatoes and maize on the one-hectare garden at her homestead.

“For instance, a single plant gives me 40 tomatoes,” she said. “I have 1 000 plants and these are likely to give me 40 000 tomatoes. There is money in market-gardening.”

But it is not lost on most villagers that Khupe, despite not being the legislator of the area, has been able to mobilise money to bankroll the drip irrigation project, a first for the entire Matabeleland region.

“Many of us here are failing to put food on the table, but we hope with the election of people of such calibre as Khupe, things may change,” Kholisani Sibanda, an 88-year-old woman said.

Idah Ndlovu, another villager, said she hoped Khupe’s project would create employment.