Scorched Binga reels under the weight
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IT is 8am and a couple of hours after sunrise. For the folk here in Binga, it is the beginning of yet another sweltering October day.
Just like in every part of Zimbabwe, October has the hottest days, and in Binga, a district that lies on the edges of the Zambezi Valley, the temperatures are significantly much higher, making life more difficult for the locals, who mostly survive on carving, fishing, pottery and very little subsistence farming.
The rivers, most of which spill into the nearby Lake Kariba, run dry, and with the area being largely rural, the only available water sources — boreholes — begin to give less and less water.
For example, at Siansundu, the boreholes only release water after sunset, leaving many to spend the better part of the nights at the few available water points.
In May, human rights watchdog, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), in a survey report, noted that Binga, despite its proximity to the Zambezi River, had chronic water shortages, due to inadequate infrastructure.
Prince Dubeko Sibanda, then the legislator for the area, said the setting-up of infrastructure for the provision of water was the government’s responsibility.
“The (Ian) Smith regime promised Binga people when it relocated them from the Zambezi River that water would follow them, but failed to fulfil that promise, the same with the Zanu PF government,” Sibanda said.
“Government must provide water infrastructure, boreholes are not the answer to the water problems in communities.
“We cannot have people and their livestock drinking from boreholes.
“We do not have a government. People need clean water for domestic use, drinking and for agriculture.”
Jestina Mukoko, the ZPP national director, said the issue of water problems in Binga needed an urgent solution.
“The government should also ensure the prioritisation of the welfare of the people of Binga,” Mukoko said.
“Only eight months ago, one person died and others were injured in floods, and as we approach another rainy season, the people of Binga are still at risk of floods as nothing has been done to relocate the victims.”
In addition to water shortages, the area, whose majority population are the Tonga people, is always stalked by hunger despite being located close to Zimbabwe’s major water body, Lake Kariba.
The stark contrast between the lives of the native Tonga people and of those who live at and come to the fancy hotels and resorts and fisheries lining up the edges of Lake Kariba, and the safaris surrounding the areas, lays bare the marginalisation of the locals, who live from hand to mouth.
Reaching Binga is a nightmare, not just because of the mountainous terrain that makes navigation difficult, but also due to the road infrastructure’s advanced state of neglect.
From the main highway off the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highway, one travels for over 170km in a potholed road that runs across the mountainous territory.
In interviews carried out in Manjolo, Siansundu and Binga centre, locals said they felt neglected by central government.
For the Tonga people, the bad road is one of the reasons they feel the national establishment has abandoned them.
“The state of the roads that lead here is a big issue. It feeds into our belief that we have been left on our own,” said a Binga resi