Chiefs stop Vic Falls meeting

CHIEFS in Hwange District on Monday stopped a meeting organised by the Victoria Falls Municipality to finalise selection of a list of names for the naming of streets and suburbs, complaining that they were left out of initial consultation processes.

The local authority has embarked on an exercise to name close to 200 roads, suburbs and shopping centres and tasked residents and community leaders to propose names.

Residents, councillors and “elders” in the form of former councillors gathered at the council boardroom to sieve 41 names seconded during the exercise. The meeting turned into a circus as chiefs complained about being left out of the process.

Chiefs Shana, Nekatambe, Whange and Mvuthu who attended the meeting said they felt disrespected by being left out of the process which had seen three meetings being held in their absence.

Hwange District has five chiefs and only Chief Dingane-Nelukoba didn’t attend.

“You showed disrespect for traditional leaders by not including us in the process all along. Now you want us to contribute, that’s unfair,” said chief Nekatambe.

“We can’t be part of removal of names. Give us time to consult each other and we will bring names.”

Chief Shana said the whole process was tantamount to confusion.

“Victoria Falls is a town and not a business centre which is why we have one District Administrator. This whole thing is wrong and you are confusing the whole district,” said Chief Shana.

He said traditional leaders were born politicians and peace loving compared “to the politics you claim to be doing these days.”

Chief Shana said the war of liberation was fought to restore identity.

“You want to cause conflict. Let’s not confuse the situation. We are one and we need to understand issues as one people. We can’t be chiefs without an identity. These heroes whose names we want to select went to war to correct the status quo but you want to distort this. Why did you exclude us and you are only inviting us to make amendments?”

The list comprised of President Mugabe, three late Vice-Presidents Joshua Nkomo, John Landa Nkomo and Simon Muzenda, Josiah Chinamano, the late Mama Johanna Mafuyana, Sally Mugabe, among others.

President Mugabe, VPs Joshua, John and Chinamano were not debated on and participants concurred that only names with a bearing on the resort town be included.

It is then that the opinion of chiefs was sought.

Said Chief Shana: “It’s true that some of these names already have streets named after them elsewhere. We need to recognise our own people. If you had given us a chance we could have brought good names. You are too young to know anything while we have people in our areas who we can second to choose names — that’s the identity we need. Give us time to consult elders in our communities because we are peace makers who don’t want people to fight. We will bring names that you can sit and consider.”

Deputy Mayor Councillor Norris Nyathi who chaired the meeting admitted the council erred and called off the meeting to allow the chiefs time to come up with name suggestions.

He said: “This is not the final selection. We are just going through the submitted list.”

Participants wanted the majority of names be those of people who contributed to tourism, being the major business in Victoria Falls and people directly linked to the Nambya and Tonga communities included on the list.

A total of 198 names are required — 184 being for roads, seven each for shopping centres and new suburbs.