Who remembers the various operations and projects? Health for all by 2000, the Jatropha fuel craze, etc.? Or when they vowed on national television that diesel was coming out of a rock in Chinhoyi! In this case I agree with the politicians, at least in principle – Harare is congested and moving the capital would be a welcome development.
But I disagree on the timing of such an ambitious project, the location and whether a new city is necessary. More importantly this latest government project attempts to divert a problem and offer temporary solutions without addressing the causes.
Most Zimbabweans will agree that now is not the time to be building new cities considering that our economy is fragile and there is not enough money to efficiently run the country.
We lack good health facilities, food, shelter and our industries desperately need every last cent we have. Education is underfunded, unemployment is high and civil servants are not earning decent wages.
Already there are complaints that the money from the Chiadzwa diamond fields is being diverted to other places and not benefiting Manicaland. Many feel that it is this money which will be used to build the new capital. Perhaps the politicians will provide the money themselves – by all accounts they are as rich as Croesus.
The most important question that should be asked is why Harare is congested and why it is growing when other towns are not. Moving the capital city without addressing this problem will not change anything, whatever attracts people to Harare – or what makes people leave other places – will continue doing so and Harare’s congestion will only get worse. Other cities like Masvingo have hardly changed since colonial times – a result of the government’s obsession with having everything in Harare.
To permanently solve the congestion problem, people must find it worthwhile to live in other places and this can only be done by decentralising. This will also increase the efficiency in the issuing of critical documents like passports and driver’s licences which, in the case of driver’s licences, take more than two years to be processed. – Youth Forum Information Department, Harare
Post published in: Letters to the Editor