GOVERNMENT has rehabilitated 54 boreholes in Tsholotsho in the last three months to improve access to water in the arid region facing perennial water challenges.
This is part of Government’s commitment to ensure that all communities have access to water.
In an interview, Tsholotsho District Development Coordinator Mr Aaron Gono said the rehabilitation of boreholes is part of measures being implemented to improve lives at community level.
“We have quite a number of boreholes that we are rehabilitating and in the last quarter, we managed to rehabilitate about 54 boreholes just to provide water. Through rehabilitation of boreholes, we have also initiated nutritional gardens for the community. We have solar power on some of the boreholes where there are nutritional gardens and we have done this in several wards,” said Mr Gono.
He said the nutritional gardens are improving food security in the district.
“We are now witnessing change through nutritional gardens. Some of the people are now managing to sell their produce, having produced enough to sustain themselves. Besides the gardens we are also running other programmes such as the poultry projects and they are running successfully,” he added.
Meanwhile, so far 280 houses for Tsholotsho flood victims were completed but houses for 25 other families are yet to get new houses.
A total of 305 houses are supposed to be constructed for Tsholotsho villagers who had to be relocated to higher ground following the 2017 floods.
Delays in the release of funds have stalled the relocation of all the families.
“The total houses in Tshino and Sawudweni are supposed to be 305 and we have 25 that are yet to be completed. We were targeting to complete the construction before the rainy season commences. But the rains are already upon us.
However, the completion of the houses is dependent on the release of funds by Treasury. So, it might be difficult for us to determine when they will be completed,” said Mr Gono.
He said at the moment families who are yet to be allocated homes are still living at their old homes.
“So far, the families are living in dual homes and the idea of the recovery programme is to provide shelter during the rainy season as their original homes are prone to flooding. But in terms of their livelihoods, they still use their old homes where their fields are. And most of the time the able bodied spend most of their time in the old homesteads and only come to the new homes during the rainy season. The elderly and children are the ones who have fully relocated to these new homes,” he said.
Mr Gono said after engaging community leaders they have created a community cemetery to cater for the relocated villagers. There had been problems with relocated families going back to their old homesteads where cemeteries are located.
“We engaged the community, we had a meeting with the traditional leadership, headman and village heads and now for Tshino there is now a cemetery and Esawudweni it’s the same. We engaged with the community and we can safely say we have resolved the problem,” said Mr Gono.
