Big Three was constructed in 2009 by a local NGO, but the late Chief Khayisa Ndiweni allegedly ordered the destruction of the rural health centre claiming that he had been side-lined in the project.
Located at Big Three business centre, the clinic was meant to ease the plight of villagers in Umguza District, who were travelling hundreds of kilometres for medical care – to Bulawayo or Nyamandlovu.
“The clinic should be reconstructed because the person who was against this project is no more. Can you imagine, sick people are travelling long distances to hospitals and clinics when this clinic could have been the panacea to their problems? I really do not understand why our local authority allowed the demolishment of the clinic when it had approved the project in the first place,” said Hebert Dube, the MDC-T district chairperson for the area.
Another villager, who refused to be named for fear of victimisation, suggested that the incoming chief should re-engage with both the clinic’s donors and government so that the project could be resuscitated for the benefit of the local people.
“We are waiting for the new chief to be installed so that we can engage him together with other stakeholders. Ntabazinduna is heavily populated with more than six wards and desperately needs a clinic,” said the villager.
Chief Ndiweni’s United Kingdom-based son is expected to take over the chieftainship at the end of this month. His father died in August 2010.
The chief executive officer of Umguza Rural District Council, Collen Moyom refused to shed light on the circumstances that led to the demolishing of the clinic, staff cottages and water tanks.
The late chief Ndiweni was widely feared by his subjects and often controversial. Before his death he blocked the establishment of a lucrative commercial jatropha plantation project in the area that had been set up by a group of business people.
Post published in: News