InFocus News

Bulawayo celebrates 79th anniversary of city status

The City of Bulawayo held its 79th annual civic ser vice on Sunday 06 Novem ber 2022, to celebrate city status after its declaration on 4th of November in 1943.

The service which was held at Cel ebration church, was attended by various stakeholders which includ ed His Worship Mayor Solomon Mguni, Minister for Bulawayo Provincial Affairs Honorable Judith Ncube, Honorable Members of Parliament, Senators, organisations, council staff as well as residents. His Worship Solomon Mguni in his opening remarks recognised fore bears efforts by the council officials and stakeholders on getting the city

where it is today.He highlighted on the achievements and numerous challenges they encountered during period of pandemic Covid 19, as well as the goals that are set to be achieved by city of Bulawayo.

“As the City of Bulawayo we would like to thank the Almighty Lord for the achievements we have had in the past years. Despite the harsh economic situation and the numer ous challenges that we have faced as a city”, said Mayor Mguni Mayor Mguni pointed on how the council team managed to sail through during the period of pandemic Covid -19 that setback number of projects that were meant to be done during the Covid-19

timeframe. He also highlighted how water and Sanitation was a challenge faced by city of Bulawayo as water distribution and delivery continue to be rationed, due to last year’s poor rainfall.

“With God grace we manage to pull through numerous challenges, water distribution and delivery is a challenge we face as result of poor rains,” said Mayor Mguni These challenges were addressed by drilling of boreholes in Nyaman dlovu as it has managed to ease water crisis and ongoing project of Gwayi-Shangani dam is set to address water shortages faced by the city.

City of Bulawayo has improved its sewer system as the main plant have been rehabilitated and sewer burst in Lobengula suburbs and Makokoba was addressed with renewal of sewer tanks.

Mayor Mguni further said the city is on the road to achieve its agenda of becoming a smart city by 2024 and he highlighted that informal traders should bear with them on that one, as some of the decision made by council are not conducive and they are fully aware of eco

nomic challenges prevailing in the country.

“Citizens should have an under standing on this, as some of the decision and implementation of this agenda of attaining a smart city goes against informal traders, though we are aware of the situa tion and economic challenges being faced in the country”, he said He pointed out that the city has observed breast cancer awareness and encouraged residents to come together fight in one corner.

“Its high time we come together to look and harness human for cancer treatment”, said Mayor Mguni Road networks were foreseen as a challenge that the city is currently facing as rainfall season has already started.

Everyone was encouraged to play his/her part towards the develop ment of the city of Bulawayo and he was graced with a gift after making his remarks.

-year-old girl child from Tsholot sholo who was impregnated by her father as it was alleged that he was performing rituals.It is through cultural practices and beliefs that violates the children rights espe cially young women and girl child who are the victims of these re ligious beliefs. Traditional leader Gampu from Tsholotsholo take a stand and set a pace to other lead ers to fight against child marriages and sexual abuse.

Early Child Marriage a cause for concern

Provision of section 19(2C) of the constitution of Zimbabwe clearly state that children are protected from maltreatment, neglect or any form of abuse. Furthermore, the consti tution also safeguard the interest of children in new marriage act which state that all marriages are entered into between man and women above 18years of age and facilitat ing marriage of children under 18 years is now a criminal offence Hence, it is child’s right to live fully

and pass through all the stages of childhood, adolescence to adult hood free from any violation. Children shouldn’t be deprived of their childhood as it leads to lim ited opportunities, poverty, early pregnancies and expose them to domestic violence.

However,the environment has been hostile to children after media reports were awashed with rising number of child marriages and abuse.For instance,recently a 9

To add on, during a Parliament session, Dr Ruth Labode revealed a shocking statistic that between January 2021 and February 2021, 4 959 children fell pregnant, and more than 10 000 teenagers left school due to early child pregnan cy.

“There is a report which states that more than 10,000 girls left school because of pregnancies, and we sit here and pretend as if it is some thing that will just disappear. What I am saying is that we have a seri ous problem,” Labode said.

Dr Labode made an urgent call for

Zimbabwean government to make a review on Termination Pregnancy Act.

“Though, the country has strict restrictions on abortion, many girl children are resorting to illegal and unsafe means of abortions, and it is

costing their lives,” she said. Therefore, it’s high time Zimba bwe call upon duty bearers, CSOs, media and relevant stakeholders to strive for justice for every girl child and protect the interests of women and children.

On the other hand,Women Insti

tute for Leadership Development and other stakholders are set to embark on marathon race on 13 November 2022,to raise awareness campaign against early child mar riages and abuse.

CommunityVoices

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT: A PAINFUL JOKE

By Tatenda Kombora

“A politician is like your maid! You tell them what to do and when you’re not happy with them any more, you fire them!”

After she had said this, the whole room broke into a bout of laugh ter and l chuckled. Despite the room having been one filled with responsible citizens that always took it upon themselves to attend bill hearings and ward meetings and hold their duty bearers to account, they found the above statement to be very funny. My mind immediately ran to my history lessons in High school on French history where we had learnt about Rousseau and his famous Social contract. In his theory he says that citizens of a country and their leaders have an agreement between them, the citizens elect them to positions of power and in return these leaders work to better the lives of those same people that

voted for them. He goes further to say, loosely that if the leaders fail to do what is expected of them, the citizens have the power to break the agreement and remove them from their positions of authority. If you live anywhere in Africa this is very interesting to think about because more often than not nothing of this sort happens, it is never that simply really. Political leaders often become gods and not servants so it will be clear why the people in that room found this bold statement quite humorous. Her statement wasn’t the status qou, in fact it hasn’t been the status qou in over four decades!

Here in Zimbabwe where we live, politicians are very seasonal, they appear towards elections where they promise to build spaghetti roads and create five million jobs and then disappear after being elected. Only to appear in the next elections promising to solve every problem under the sun, problems

that their absence in mind and actions have caused. They let debt and corruption spiral when they are in office only to come back and claim that they can solve these problems in one hundred days, if only we vote for them. We, the citizens are completely knocked off our feet by the gold and diamonds they keep dangling in front of our eyes that we forget their numerous sins in an instant. You should see us then, chanting slogans while our mothers and aunties twerk without a care in the world and we declare our undying love and support for them. We tell them we will die and kill for them, the crowd roars with excitement and the truth is we mean it. If their utopian promises can’t do the trick, our politicians have weapons of mass destruction to force us into submission. In my beloved Zimbabwe, no one wants to recall the campaign of violence that had the Human Rights Watch report close two 2,000 incidents of torture and violence. Those are our maids and garden boys they went to school to only be educated in the theory of the stick and the carrot. They practice it religiously because they know that where the carrot cannot be used, the stick will do the job.

Despite smiling at her bold state ment, l did so painfully. I wanted to believe her and l knew everyone in that room wanted to believe her too. We wanted our president to willingly attend a commission of enquiry and answer questions put to them with zeal as other na tions had shown us was possible.

CommunityVoices

We wanted the power that other citizens elsewhere had where they could force a Prime Minister to resign because he lied about at tending a party when the rest of the nation was under Covid-19 regu lations. We wanted such transpar ency and accountability from our leaders, we are human enough to deserve those rights. This train of thought led me to start questioning how we as a country could ever get there or else we would be stuck with politicians that were more concerned about getting more cars for themselves than water for their citizens.

I knew we needed to be more “woke”, not just in hashtags about celebrities who couldn’t care less if we starved to death but with the governance of our communities. I knew too that the old philosophy of telling anyone who dared com plain about dire conditions to join politics didn’t fully work. Asking every capable person to be a poli tician does not work. It is true that we need more honest and capable citizens as our political leaders but they can’t all be politicians. Don’t other institutions such as the med ical and teaching fields need people

with integrity?

However, whilst we all cannot be politicians, we certainly can all be more politically conscious. We can learn to think carefully about who we are voting for and if they actu ally deserve it. We can all learn to question parliamentarians about CDF’s and our debt status, we can all really learn to demand we be treated as we are, humans. But, what do l know? I’m just a twenty two year old whose grown frustrated with a country where thievery seems to be the only thing that pays.