MUTARE A British non-governmental organisation, Friends of the Guild Foundation, has pledged to install .......solar equipment, improve the water system and provide other essential drugs to some rural clinics in Manicaland, an official has said.
In an interview with ***The Zimbabwean, the projects director of the Foundation, Nick Bowden said: We have already started installing solar panels and equipment to some of the clinics in Manicaland, Mashonaland and Midlands provinces. We hope to do the same in many other rural clinics. We are looking at those clinics in remote areas.
He added that the main objective of the project was to ease the various problems at the clinics that include poor water reticulation, electricity and shortage of essential drugs.
We will be looking forward to drilling boreholes that will supply water and install solar system to capacitate the electrical needs of the clinics. We have some donors who will be donating medicines and drugs, said Bowden. We are going to install solar power for both lighting and powering electric equipments. The lighting will also be used by the clinic staff for domestic use.
Bowden, however, registered his concern over political interference by some traditional leaders.
There has been some political interference by chiefs who are interfering with our operations. The traditional leaders always align developmental projects to politics. Some chiefs think that we are MDC people who want to effect regime change through our projects, which is quite unfortunate, he said.
Villagers interviewed welcomed the development and said this would go a long way to improve the crippled health delivery system in the rural areas.
Daniel Mafoti a councillor in Buhera said: We are grateful for this initiative. The government cannot do it alone, so we appreciate such efforts being made by these NGOs. We are going to provide labour in some of the projects as a way of appreciating and complementing their works.
Post published in: Analysis