BULAWAYO Provincial Affairs minister Eunice Sandi-Moyo’s first policy initiative since her appointment in September last year is a proposal to rename all roads, buildings, stadiums and health institutions with English names.
The recommendation was made to the city council through the Bulawayo Metropolitan provincial administrator’s office.
It echoed a resolution by Zanu PF at its December conference where the party outlined its intentions to rename towns such as Victoria Falls and other landmarks, which it says bear colonial names.
The campaign actually started in 2002 where then Education minister Aeneas Chigwedere tried to change names of several schools, but was blocked by parents. Chigwedere had actually changed names of schools such as Milton High in Bulawayo to Khumalo High, Prince Edward High in Harare to Murenga High after a so-called Njelele spirit medium that instigated and directed the First Chimurenga of 1896-1897.
Warren Park 3 Primary had been renamed Chenjerai Hunzvi Primary after the late war veterans’ leader who instigated the violent land invasions from 2000.
The fact that Zimbabwe has been independent since 1980 and Zanu PF still feels it has not addressed that aspect of the country’s colonial past should be a serious indictment on the party on its own.
However, what we found disconcerting is that a minister deployed to a city described as a scrapyard in need of urged fixing by President Robert Mugabe at his inauguration in August 2013 would find changing names of roads and buildings a top priority!
Bulawayo City Council has respectfully advised that recommendations to change names of some of the roads the government is pushing to rename were made in 2007.
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The same Zanu PF government has been sitting on the proposals, mostly likely because they were made by an MDC-dominated council.
Sandi-Moyo has started on a wrong footing and if this is a sign of things her office would do in the next five years, then Bulawayo is headed for a disaster.
Our leaders are clearly fiddling while Rome is burning.
Zanu PF is trying by all means to divert people from issues that need urgent redress and the proposals by the provincial office is just one of them.
