Lupane needs investors

EDITOR — I wish to flight an SOS to the generality of Zimbabweans who want to invest in Lupane town, the emerging provincial capital of Matabeleland North.

The community of the town are in dire need of green vegetables fresh from the soil. Humankind is not complete without green foods.

There is not a single fruit and veggie shop at Lupane town except the thinly stocked vendors’ stalls who order their produce from Bulawayo.

The costs of transportation are too high and hence profits too little. This in turn necessitates out of reach mark up prices.

The items are perishable too. Our diet as consumers is not balanced as a result. At Lupane we have fish by the marine tonne thanks to God’s providence but we can enhance that by eating more veggies and fruits. A well balanced diet is the quintessence of life.

It elongates the human life span. It appears in Zimbabwe we have two classes of society, the urban who eat according to choice mode and the rural who eat according to force mode and are neglected by the state. This is unfair and undemocratic.

Lupane has lovely and quality shops which are lying idle. The owners invested in their construction not to operate these shops themselves but to rent them out or lease them out.

That is developmental investment. Our modern metropolises progressed along the same route to be where they are today.

Lupane has a university. There is an upmarket private medical centre which exudes modernity as one looks at it. The problem, though, is that we have never been blessed with hard-working and visionary MPs and senators, not even provincial governors. This is a fact.

Both our Zanu-PF and MDC-T MPs and senators don’t know what development is. KRDC in particular has lots of good land which is suitable for produce growing in a big way. And oh boy, do we not have a lovely dam!

It stretches back all of 12km by my conservative estimate. Yes, with the dam bursting at the seam with salubrious marine life against the back drop of an azure, cerulean blue sky. The biota is equally eye-catching (the animals, birds and trees, aka fauna and flora).

The air is cool and pervasively romantic and idyllic. Our MPs, senators and councillors are not only a problem but an impediment to development.

They never even come to the people with development projects or programmes. They come only when they need our vote and whatever they bring to us is fake. They are truly political “animals” as the saying goes.

When they are invited to a meeting (for they never organise any themselves) they invariably come too late, always more than 60 minutes late. No apology. They take us for granted.

Some of them announce their arrival by loud, boisterously exuberant laughing whose reverberation rattles the roofing tiles. An indication that they eat three square meals per day and drink and dine well.

Our MPs and senators, once in office, cease to represent their respective parties exclusively as a rule but the communities inclusively. It is a pity I am none of the above. My theme would be community development.

Whether I succeed is neither here nor there but my voice should be loud enough to be heard by the public. People need food on the table at the end of the day and not slogans. I would insist in Parliament, in the Senate or in council that at every growth point there should be a vegetable growing project spearheaded jointly and cooperatively by the local authority concerned and the relevant ministry.

Populations in the rural areas are starving unnecessarily in some cases as a result of poor and incompetent leadership (see section 264 of the Constitution). Rural populations deserve healthgiving food such as broccoli, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, the onion family varieties, etc.

Access to food is not a favour to be dispensed but a fundamental human right (see section 15 of the Constitution). The shops which are lying idle here at Lupane as mentioned above belong to the pioneering business men and women of Lupane.

These people had a vision which now has turned into a mirage, an ever receding and illusive vision. We have a Ministry of SMEs and Cooperative Development, yes. But I do not see it on the ground except that it is housed in a cubicle the size of a booth.

What a pity! All of you out there, please come and invest at Lupane. You won’t regret it. Martin Stobart, Lupane.