RUNDE Rural District Council in Zvishavane is reportedly embroiled in a tug of war with traditional leaders and the local community after the local authority halted projects being initiated by Fred Moyo, the former Hwange Colliery Company managing director.
REPORT BY TAWANDA MHANGAMI
Moyo has been involved in drilling and rehabilitation of boreholes in the Zvishavane-Runde constituency. He was forced to stop after eight out of 13 councillors passed a vote against all the projects that he was implementing.
The former Hwange Colliery boss hails from Murowa village within the constituency and has been involved in charity work for over a decade.
The abrupt halting of the projects has not gone down well with chiefs in the area, especially the drilling and repairing of boreholes, as virtually all the villages in the district are faced with acute water shortages.
Some villagers travel close to 10km to fetch water.
The project’s target was to drill boreholes at the homesteads of each of the six chiefs in the constituency, as well as repairing close to 300 dysfunctional ones.
The constituency has a total of 405 boreholes and about 100 are functioning as the District Development Fund, which is mandated to maintain them, grapples to source adequate resources to carry out repairs.
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The row has sucked in the local authority’s chairperson councillor Talita Nyahondo, who survived a vote of no confidence from fellow councillors on April 26 2013.
Nyahondo was accused of working with Moyo in a move seen as an attempt to unseat the incumbent Member of Parliament, Larry Mavhima.
Nyahondo said she was unfazed by the vote of no confidence, stating that one of her duties was to ensure there was development in the district especially in the provision of clean water to the community.
“I have been in council since 1997 and the role of a local authority and that of the government is to ensure community development, with the councillor standing on behalf of the two through mobilising resources,” she said.
“If the electorate is choosing a candidate as a Member of Parliament or councillor, they expect that person to initiate developmental projects not to sit on their laurels.
“As a council chairperson, I sit in the Community Share Ownership Trust and occasionally visit all villages in the district, and to tell you the truth, we do not have to wait for the money coming out of the trust to initiate some of the developmental projects.”
Nyanhondo added that the issue of water shortages must be addressed as a matter of urgency, as most households were suffering and all traditional chiefs had come out in the open indicating that there was need to ensure the availability of clean water sources. When contacted for comment, Moyo said he was moved by water shortages and had assisted the community through implementation of various projects.
“My ambition is to ensure that the local community and their livestock have access to clean water without having to travel long distances,” he said.
