Trouble in Tongaland

People drying fish in Binga

BINGA’S terrain is scenic, but decaying infrastructure highlights the pain suffered by its inhabitants, writes our Companies Editor, Shame Makoshori
At about 1800hrs on a Thursday, the heat at Chitekete Business Centre in Gokwe was suffocating.
The sun’s rays pierced the African sky, descending earthwards to kiss the undulating terrain and the magnificent horizons yonder.
The footprints and scars of an unbearable and torturous day for scores of fish traders who thronged this remote Midlands growth point were still visible.
People were drenched in sweat, their weary faces struggling to come to terms with the baking temperatures in a place located at the heart of an extremely dry region that can only support a few resilient crops. It is now the bastion of goats and cattle rearing.
But the fish traders were determined.
They wanted to kick off the final leg of a difficult trip that sees them being tossed over the corrugated gravel roads and precariously hanging bridges, a journey that takes them onto the fringes of Lake Kariba.
As one switches over into Matabeleland North, the mountain ranges keep shifting positions.
And travellers continue to chase them as they seem to remain in the foothills of the breathtaking landmarks on the Tongaland, one of Zimbabwe’s remotest regions.
Over 200 kilometres away towards Zambia, the mighty Zambezi makes up for the deficiency of rivers with its wide floodplains and massive waters in whose underbellies lie the fish that have spawned the multimillion dollar industry, supporting thousands of people affected by deindustrialisation in Zimbabwe.
Recent flash floods and torrential rains have shaved off gravel on all ends of bridges that connect various chieftainships that rule the area, including Siabuwa, Nenyunga and Neshangwe.
This has dealt a blow to the vital infrastructure, leaving the bridges precariously clinging on, and discouraging big transport firms from operating in the region.
The result has been the catastrophic transport shortages that the people find themselves in today.
Drivers that frequent the bush highways have developed added skills to negotiate the almost impassable motorways.
Binga’s terrain may be scenic, but its deteriorating roads highlight the rigours that have confronted its inhabitants for over five decades, and could continue to haunt them unless President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s new administration realises their agony and springs into immediate action.
At his inauguration on Sunday, Mnangagwa acknowledged that the road ahead would be tough, but he may have forgotten about the fruitless promises that his governing ZANU PF has made to the people of the resource-rich but impoverished Zambezi valley.
At Chitekete, traders get onto busses, lorries and minibuses on their way to fishing points that Zimbabwe’s once ambitious government gave a greenlight to be used.
They stretch over wide expanses of the scenic shoreline, where they have supported fishing families for decades, serving as collection hubs fish traders from across the country.
They then ship them into the big cities.
In a country where unemployment levels have touched the unsustainable levels of above 90 percent, kapenta and bream fishing camps at Mujere, Chunga, Chalala, Gatshe Gatshe and Musambakaruma have evolved into the biggest sources of income for thousands of unemployed Zimbabweans, direct victims of extensive de-industrialisation and capital flight.
These fish traders are part of an estimated 5,7 million Zimbabweans that have taken respite into the informal sector after years of economic mismanagement and high level corruption.
Their economic activities now represent over half of Zimbabwe’s $16 billion gross domestic product, according to various reports.
It is feared that this number could keep rising unless the country’s incoming administration immediately lays out a viable reconstruction programme that will attract investors back and rebuild existing companies.
Many millions of these victims of unchecked maladministration that has reduced over 70 percent of the country’s 16 million citizens to paupers who eke out a living in the streets of big cities, condemned by high unemployment and bickering on the political front.
Onthis particular Thursday, 53 year old Melody Sibanda arrived at Chitekete around 1800 hours from Harare, headed for the fishing points.
She dashed to catch a ramshackle truck that was bound for Mujere, a familiar terrain for this veteran of the Zambezi’s blossoming fish trade. She has been making trips to the Zambezi over and over since 1993. Her tales spanned from deadly encounters with ghosts in the middle of the night to serious confrontations with elephants at the heart of Zimbabwe’s jungles.
The truck was overloaded.
We were already packed inside, our luggage pushed underneath our legs.
She volunteered to travel from the roof of the truck, where she joined several passengers who had agreed to soldier through over 150 kilometres sitting precariously.
“I have been doing this business since 1993,” she said.
“This is not new to me,” Sibanda noted.
“This is my life. I can’t be left behind. I must be at Mujere tonight so that I can return with this truck tomorrow. My customers are waiting and I can’t let them down. This business has kept our families intact in these difficult times,” she said.
She was taking new apprentice, Precious Ncube, through the paces.
It is a well-oiled informal fish trade system.
Even though it is difficult, the fish trade is said to be generating millions of dollars per annum, filling the huge gap exposed by job losses in Zimbabwe, where hyperinflation of over 500 billion percent in 2008 gave way to massive cash shortages from 2016.
A blossoming currency black market has emerged, escalating an already bad situation.
“This is my first trip, I am looking forward to starting my business to give a better life to my family,” Ncube told The Financial Gazette.
“The pain of seeing your children and family suffer because you are doing nothing is deeper than the pain that I am feeling in this truck. This is nothing,” she added.
Daily, trucks like this make nightly trips deeper into the jungles of the Zambezi over 150 kilometres from Chitekete, through potholed roads and delicately balancing bridges that have been half swept away by torrential rains.
Destruction of Zimbabwe’s road infrastructure, estimated by the African Development Bank to require $30 billion to rebuild, is more pronounced in the North Western part of the country, especially in Binga district.
Here, over 139 000 people are resident.
They witness fish traders going through pain daily, on top of trucks and minibuses, inside overloaded passenger seats and on the trailers.
Chitekete Business Centre was a hive of activity.
None of the traders cared about the hostile temperatures.
There was a rush to catch the few lorries and minibuses to take them to the fishing points.
newsdesk@fingaz.co.zw