Bureaucracy Frustrates Diaspora Support In Matabeleland

Diaspora and local communities have come together to construct a clinic in Sontala. Image by Community Podium

BY DOUGLAS NCUBE | @The_CBNews | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | MAY 28, 2021

In an attempt to uplift the communities they come from, natives of Matabeleland in the diaspora face a brick wall from local leadership.

MATOBO (The Citizen Bulletin) — Systematic marginalisation of the Matabeleland region has over the years resulted in a proliferation of various associations in the diaspora whose aim is to plow back into the communities they come from.

Diaspora communities have over the years revived the Matabeleland region through building clinics, schools, donating textbooks, rehabilitation of poor roads and funding of public health institutions to mention but a few.

Most structures are at various levels of development while some have already been commissioned.

However, meaningful contributions to rural Matabeleland have made both local and national government leaders to be suspicious, regarding such developments to be politically motivated.

As a result, both the national and local governments set out channels to follow whenever anyone or any association wants to donate in a particular area, a system that has proved to be costly.

According to different associations of Zimbabweans in the diaspora, donation protocols set out are a stumbling block to meaningful projects which could uplift the Matabeleland region. One major challenge with the set protocols is the need to request permission from local government personnel just to develop or contribute to the community.

Around 2015-2016, the Matopos Community Trust Fund (MCTF) and community members in Maphisa, lost a generator in such a scenario in which the Trust’s Chief Executive Officer says “there were a lot of political issues involved.”  

One community member from Maphisa narrated to The Citizen Bulletin their version of events regarding a generator which was meant to assist the Maphisa Hospital, at a time when the area was facing critical electricity problems which resulted in corpses rotting in the mortuary.

“We raised money for almost a year and bought a big generator in South Africa for Maphisa Hospital; transported it to the health facility; however, there were delays in installing it. Within a week a truck came and took it away on government orders.”
Maphisa community member who preferred anonymity due to a fear of reprisal

“We were told it was because we did not follow the right channels and that’s how we lost our generator; never saw it up to today.”

Jealous Nkomo, Chief Executive Officer at MCTF says the trust was asked by Chief Fuyana to assist the community to contribute towards the purchase of a generator.

“On what happened to the generator I couldn’t follow because there were a lot of people involved in that,” he says.

The Matopos Community Trust Fund was established in 2009 with the aim of developing the community. Recently the association together with the community in Zimbabwe built a dip tank for an area called Magololo under Sontala and contributed towards the building of a clinic which is still under construction.

However, Chief Mayenga Ngwemnyama Fuyana in Semukwe Communal land under Maphisa denies the claims that the generator was taken away arguing that he would have been the first to know since he and Matron MaThonsi spearheaded that community project.

“The generator was a community project after we had realised that the hospital mortuary was failing to function due to power challenges. We have in the past few months, however, connected it to the whole hospital to ensure that medicines in the dispensary are kept at the correct temperatures,” says Chief Fuyana.

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Fuyana adds: “If anyone wants to donate to the community under my jurisdiction they approach the village heads who then takes that request to the Chief and his assistants depending on the type of a donation.”

“Sometimes we don’t have that time to go to all those people because they live far away from each other, but we don’t have a choice but to inform them,” says Mike Dube, Vice Chairman of Mbizo Community Development Association (MCDA).

“Our association was launched in 2019 and before the actual launch we had asked for the presence of a senior councillor, area councillor, the chief and headman however, they couldn’t come citing that they needed a proper invitation.”
Mike Dube, MCDA Vice Chairman

Mbizo dam that needs construction. Image by MCDA

Mbizo Community Development Association was established in 2019 via a WhatsApp group with the aim of rebuilding the Mbizo area in Gwanda. The association’s first priority was aimed towards the reconstruction of a dam that burst in 2016 after heavy rains in the area.

Speaking during a Curate Gwanda’s Twitter space one participant indicated that even donations coming from local non-governmental organisations faced the same challenge of having to follow protocol. She says their efforts to help communities are being overshadowed by official members who would want to ‘officiate’ at donating ceremonies.

“Even chiefs in our rural areas are polarised. They bring in politics at the expense of communities,” says the participant. “As an organisation, we have managed to come up with subtle ways of donating in rural areas without any hindrance by going through church leaders, community football teams and sometimes village heads.”

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