The question that arises is simple: where is the Zimbabwean government in all of this?
Your article highlights huge outstanding debts: $18,000 for electricity and $10,000 for water. Particularly worrying was the fact that the annual running costs far outstrip the income from donations. The revelation by the Manager Margaret Chigwanda that without the assistance of a UK-based charity, John Bradburne Memorial Society, the settlement would have closed is embarrassing.
Where is all the wealth from the diamonds? It is with sadness I read about your recent article on Mugabe’s visit to Rome where it says: ‘By contrast Mugabe’s government has ridden roughshod over the poor, many of whom have had to rely on charity from the very West he denounces’.
The recently appointed Pope Francis has come up with an agenda that prioritises the poor and marginalized. One would be hard pressed to find a set of people more fitting to that description than the residents of Mutemwa. With that said, apart from blaming the government, justified as it certainly is, it is also a serious indictment on us Zimbabweans, especially Catholics, for failing to make meaningful contributions to an institution on our doorstep, and a Catholic project at that.
Once again, thank you for bringing this issue into the public domain. – Benjamin Takavarasha, by e-mail
Post published in: Letters to the Editor