Flood victims’ houses to be completed by next month’
THE construction of houses for the relocated Tsholotsho flood victims is expected to be complete before the end of November, Tsholotsho North Member of Parliament Professor Jonathan Moyo has said.
Professor Moyo, who is also the Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development was at Tshino and Sawudweni Villages on Tuesday to assess progress made in the construction of 319 homesteads for more than 800 villagers who were affected by floods early this year.
He said despite the challenges faced in the construction of the houses, efforts will be made to ensure that the affected families, who are living in tents, have decent shelter before the onset of the rains.
“From the assessment we’ve done today, the 319 houses can be completed by the end of November. The assessment done reveals first and critically that the most important Government agency that is required to execute this task is in place. We have two teams appropriately headed by the required leadership from the public works department to construct the homes and school infrastructure.
“This requires physical execution to completion and in order for it to take place we need the materials as well as the human resources. It so happens that this capacity was deployed only 10 days ago and that explains why there has been this delay,” said Prof Moyo.
He said the target was to ensure work is completed before the end of November.
The houses are at various stages of completion.
Prof Moyo said it was a huge challenge for material to be transported to the sites due to the Kalahari sands but urged the tasked teams to come up with solutions.
“The transport challenge is quite acute because most of the key materials end up being off loaded at the road side instead of the sites. There’s need to find the most effective way of doing that and it turns out that they need tractors.
“Each site needs three tractors, with trailers and 20 000 litre water bowsers for each site. The water is not available here. Both the existing community and the relocated community don’t have adequate water. There has to be an alternative source and it so happens that there is lots of water in Gwayi River,” said Prof Moyo.
He said he will inform the Ministry of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development on the progress made so far so that the teams working on the project receives adequate support.
“This is what we’re going to share with the minister (Saviour Kasukuwere) who’s keen to find out where exactly the bottlenecks are. We’ve been told by competent engineers on the ground that if they get the requisite number of bricklayers per site, which is 80 per site, they can build 40 houses in 10 days.
“This means the project can be complete before the start of the rainy season if all the resources our provided. At Tshino Primary School, where most children affected by floods were accommodated, one block has been built and they need four. We have to help them get the other three and the houses for the teachers,” said Prof Moyo.
He commended Tsholotsho villagers for showing faith in the Government’s efforts, saying they can see that the Government is committed to fulfilling its promise, regardless of what the “noise makers” are saying. — @ pamelashumba1