MATOBO South villagers in Matabeleland South province have lamented the water crisis in their area saying they travel long distances to access the precious liquid as there are limited boreholes and very few dams in the district.
SILAS NKALA STAFF REPORTER
The villagers appealed to donors and the government to assist by drilling more boreholes and constructing more dams in the district to save them and their livestock, which usually succumbs to recurrent droughts that hit the province.
Angeline Ndlovu of Ward 2 in Dzembe village in the Dry Paddock area said they faced a serious water crisis, especially during the winter season, since the only borehole that serves the village runs dry forcing them to walk long distances to fetch water.
“As a community, we have a water pump but we do not have a borehole where that engine can be used,” said Ndlovu.
“We do not have the resources to drill a borehole and we appeal to those who can assist us to come to our rescue.
“The only borehole we have is at Dry Paddock and it also services Dry Paddock Primary School. That borehole does not last and runs dry every winter.”
She said the Dry Paddock area had 315 homesteads which all relied on the single borehole for water.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
When the borehole dries up, villagers and their livestock are forced to walk between three and 10km for water and this had resulted in the deaths of their animals, Ndlovu said.
Sinkamaswe Village 1 head Makhathini Ndlovu said a single borehole was their only source of water and they had tried to build a dam by blocking a river, but abandoned the process due to lack of resources.
“We tried to block a river to build a dam, but we failed due to shortage of resources,” he said.
He also said there was no clinic in his village and they had to depend on Tshelanyemba Hospital, which was far. The hospital currently offers minimal services as it has no electricity following power cable thefts. Patients are forced to travel a further 50km to Maphisa for health services.
“Sinkamaswe has more than 1 000 homesteads, but we have no clinic and we use scotchcarts to reach far away health institutions such as Homestead Clinic or Sankwenjani Clinic,” Ndlovu said.
Davis Ncube of Gwesha village in Ward 3 said although they had enough pastures for their livestock because of the good rains that fell earlier this year, the problem was water as boreholes and small dams dry up.
He said they were now fetching water from deep wells dug in the dry Gohole River riverbed.
He said the wells have to be shoulder deep for water to be accessed and if the province experienced a drought this year, then livestock would die in their thousands just as in previous years.
