Memory Rasa

“It was on June 9, 2002 around 21:00 hrs; I still vividly remember the day because I escaped death by a whisker. Though I escaped, I couldn’t help seeing my fellow colleagues and students dying in an inferno after our bus collided with a truck just after Shashe River along Masvingo – Harare highway. 
“I could hear burnt human bodies bursting; voices of students crying for help but to no avail. Since then my life became horrible as I often have nightmares hearing students calling my name screaming for help. I have tried to forget the whole incident but it’s so traumatic,” said Davidson Mugodzwa, one of the Mhunga bus crush survivors where about 40 Masvingo Teachers College students perished in 2002.
Mugodzwa was a lecturer at the college when the accident occurred and he suffered so much trauma that he could not continue with his job.
The day started just like any other for Masvingo Teachers’ College students and lecturers who had gone for national ball games competitions held at Belvedere Teachers College in Harare. After the games, the team was supposed to go back to Masvingo, but they decided to first go and watch a high profile Premier Soccer League (PSL) match against bitter rivals Highlanders and Dynamos at the National Sports Stadium.
After the match at around 17:00 hrs, the students were back in the Mhunga bus so that they could proceed with their journey back to Masvingo.
However, other students who had come on their own from Masvingo also boarded the bus and the passengers became 120 from the initial 90.
When they were less than 80km to Masvingo just after Shashe River, Mugodzwa who was sitting in the front next to the driver, said he saw an oncoming truck with flashing lights encroaching into their lane as they approached a sharp blind curve.
Mugodzwa said the driver of the bus swerved to the extreme left of the road in order to avoid a head-on but the truck continued coming to their direction and side-swiped the bus. The Mhunga bus driver then tried to control the bus, but in vein, and it landed on its side. Maize bags that were in the truck fell onto the bus and on top of some of the distraught students.
“I saw the truck coming straight encroaching our lane and I remained calm. What happened next I don’t know because I heard a loud burst and lost consciousness. I later regained my consciousness but I was already outside the bus and I realised that I had been thrown out through the broken windscreen and hit the tar mark.
“I heard students calling my name for assistance as fire engulfed the bus. I was totally confused and I ran barefoot away from the accident scene for about 5km. I was only spotted the following morning as I was shouting for help while in a forest. Some students were severely burnt, they could not be recognised and their bodies were taken to South Africa for DNA identification,” said Mugodzwa.
Phainos Makwarimba, a former Masvingo Teachers’ College student who survived the accident said June 9, 2002, is the day he would want to quickly forget.
He said although it is now close to two decades after the horrific accident, he is yet to come to terms with the reality of losing dear friends and classmates as well as failure to get any form of compensation or assistance from government.
“It was so painful to see friends being burnt beyond recognition. I remember a wife of one of the students had to be called and managed to identify her dead husband through identifying the colour of the underwear he was wearing.
“Friends like Godfrey Mururu and Nyengeterai Mweneziko all perished. Godfrey’s mother also collapsed at the scene of the accident soon after she identified the body of her son,” said Makwarimba.
“We were at the back seat and I miraculously managed to escape unhurt. I started to assist other students to get out of the bus. We had to remove the maize bags that had piled on some students but we could not rescue them all because the bus immediately caught fire. I saw the driver, Mhofu whom we had rescued and was lying on the roadside being engulfed by fire and he died shouting ‘vana vevanhu’,” Makwarimba said.
He said the crash was so traumatising that he spent over a decade having nightmares.  He said June 9, 2002 is the day he would want to fast remove from his memory as the pain of losing dear friends and relatives continue to haunt him every day.
“I was scared; I vividly remember seeing bodies being heaped at Masvingo General Hospital because the mortuary was full. Can you imagine, even my father came and went straight to the mortuary looking for my body because he had been told everyone had died.
“Even when we got back to the college, I could not sleep properly. I had nightmares almost every night hearing colleagues screaming for help. As I went to the bathroom, it was unbearable passing through empty rooms that were once occupied by friends who were now gone,” Makwarimba said.
What was more painful, perhaps, was that some injured students who were pulled from the wreckage later died as a result of the explosion, with the fierce conflagration scorching others to near-ashes. Even more painful though, according to Mugodzwa and Makwarimba, the accident was declared a national disaster and the families of the deceased were given burial assistance but nothing was given to assist the survivors.
Mugodzwa said there were students who later died from the injuries sustained in the accident because they failed to raise money for proper medical treatment.
“The accident was declared national disaster but we did not receive any assistance from government as survivors of the accident.  I only remember that President Robert Mugabe donated Z$10 million which he said was supposed to be shared among the survivors but what happened to that money no one knows. Some of the students later died because they could not access better medical facilities,” said Mugodzwa.
“Even the trauma we went through was so agonising that the situation could have been better if we had trauma centres where survivors of such horrific accidents would go for counselling,” he added.
Makwarimba concurred, saying there is need for government to think about those who survive accidents instead of only assisting families of those who would have died.
“I did not receive even a single cent from government or even the insurance companies up to today. Government should improve the road infrastructure so that we minimise accidents. It is also critical that government assists victims of road carnage by paying for medical bills the same way they provide burial assistance for the deceased,” said Makwarimba.
The Beitbridge – Harare highway has since become a death trap with an average of five fatal accidents taking place every week. There highway is taking many lives and is now deadlier than some battle fields.
President Mugabe official conducted a ground breaking ceremony for the dualisation of Beitbridge – Chirundu highway at Chaka Business Centre in May but nothing is happening on the ground.
Contacted for comment Transport Minister Dr Jorum Gumbo said there was progress on the dualisation project and real work on the ground would begin soon.
“I understand the company awarded the tender has started technical work and soon they will be on the ground. The project is big therefore, it will take a bit of time to put everything in place but I can assure you that work will start soon,” said Dr Gumbo.
Road Motor Transportation and Vehicle Registration in Zimbabwe in partnership with the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe have been pushing for the establishment of a road accident compensation fund which aims to assist those affected by road carnages.
Allowance Sango the director of Road Motor Transportation and Vehicle Registration in Zimbabwe said they are still waiting for government approval to establish the fund.
“The road accident compensation fund is still a blueprint and we hope that government will soon approve it so that it goes to Parliament for debate.  We also plan to have trauma or rehabilitation centres in future but our focus at the moment is to have the road accident compensation fund work,” said Sango.
“Once we have the fund, it would be then easy to have other policies like establishing rehabilitation centres in various cities in the country,” he added.
Research shows that many-a-times accidents completely change people’s lives for the worse as victims fail to access better medical facilities due to lack of money.  Mugodzwa said some students dropped out of college after the accident.
“Other students dropped out of school as they could not afford medical bills, some suffered mental health as a result of inhaling smoke from the dead bodies and some as a result of trauma. I was forced to resign from Masvingo Teachers’ College and went abroad to seek better medical facilities after I spent six months at a local private clinic,” said Mugodzwa.
“The government should create rehabilitation centres for accident victims and assist them through healing systems, it is very traumatising to see flesh of your colleagues burning and not have any counselling after that,” he added.
In morden day, trauma or rehabilitation centres are essential for any government not only because of accidents victims but for counselling on various issues like stress-associated illness.  In Zimbabwe we have these centres mainly in Harare and Bulawayo hence there is need to decentralise the services to other provinces and cities.local

MWENEZI – A married woman who allegedly had an extra marital fling with Nicholas Siziva, a married man from Musindo Farm village under Chief Mazetese, has eloped to his homestead and is refusing to vacate unless she is ‘compensated’, TellZim News has learnt.
In an interview, Siziva denied he ever dated Rosemary Shoko and accused her of framing him.
“The matter started some time in 2016 when Shoko’s husband accused me of having an adulterous affair with his wife. That is when the matter was brought before Headman Claudius Masukume who ordered me to pay Shoko’s husband 16 goats and one beast. I refused to comply with the judgement because I know nothing about the affair.
“On October 24, Rosemary Shoko came to my homestead and she is insisting that she will not leave unless I compensate her for the said adulterous affair. I no longer have peace at my homestead. At times she spits on cooking utensils, threatening to commit suicide at my homestead,” said Siziva.
He also accused headman Masukume of mishandling his case but efforts to get a comment form the headman were fruitless.
Siziva has sought for an eviction order from the court. His case was due to be heard at the Mwenezi Magistrate court by the time of going to print.local

….husband demands seven cattle

GUTU – A man from Gondwi is demanding seven head of cattle from a village taxi operator who allegedly slept with his wife on several occasions, TellZim News can reveal.
At the centre of the controversy is Jubilee Litha Gonese, a teacher at Gondwi Primary School, who admitted before the courts that she slept with Vengai Zivavose many times when her own husband Ranganai Madhuro was away in Harare where he works.
Madhuro now wants Zivavose to compensate him because he allegedly invaded his bedroom and dipped his hand into the forbidden cookie jar.
The case was initially heard by Chief Gutu’s court where Zivavose was found guilty and ordered to pay five cattle but he instead chose to appeal the judgement with a higher court.
The matter is now recorded under Case Number CC7/17 at the Gutu Magistrate Court where Edwin Marecha is expected to make his ruling on November 17.
Madhuro, however, is no longer prepared to accept five cattle that Chief Gutu had awarded him, but is now demanding seven because his wife has made more graphic confessions of her sexual escapades with Zivavose.
The matter began some day last year when Zivavose sent a late night ‘ndeipi, zviri sei’ greeting message to Gonese via WhatsApp.
The following morning, a suspicious Madhuro confronted Zivavose saying he was now sure that Madhuro was seeing his wife, just as some people had told him before, but Zivavose denied the accusations.
Madhuro then went to Chatsworth police station to state his domestic problems and the police later called Gonese who admitted sleeping with Zivavose once in the bush after she had boarded his taxi from Mpandawana.
The police then advised Madhuro to report his case to Chief Gutu who ordered Zivavose to pay five beasts.
At the magistrate’s court, Madhuro brought his wife and their daughter Blessing as witnesses, with Gonese, during cross-examination, making even more stunning revelations that she had slept with Zivavose not once but several times. She also claimed that Zivavose had been frequenting her home in the absence of Madhuro.
Zivavose, who is being represented by Collen Maboke of Ruvengo, Maboke and Company, maintained that he has never been in a relationship with Gonese. He also argued that on the day that Gonese claims to have met him for the first time, it was his employee George Muzariri who was driving the taxi.
It was also stated that it was not Zivavose who frequented the couple’s house but Muzariri who is Blessing’s boyfriend and with whom she has now eloped.
Zivavose also claimed that it was all a matter of sour grapes because he had rejected Madhuro’s demands that he pay US$100 so that the matter could be put to rest.local

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe chapter has taken the Parliament of Zimbabwe head on, voicing concerns over delays in media reforms as required by the Constitution.
In a letter written to the Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda, MISA Zimbabwe national chairperson Golden Maunganidze said since the enactment of the new Constitution in 2013, the media environment has not improved and all the draconian media laws are still in existence.
“Following enactment of the new Constitution in 2013, it was expected that all constitutional obligations, such as the alignment of media laws, would be performed diligently and without delay as stipulated under Section 324.
“Four years later, this has not happened as laws such as the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) and Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), among others, are still to be aligned with the Constitution.
“This is despite proclamations by the government that these laws are part of the 400 Acts of Parliament that are set for review with the aim of aligning them with the Constitution,” said Muanganidze in his letter.
He said the safety of journalists, especially now as the country approaches the 2018 elections, should be urgently addressed.
“Cases involving the assault, harassment and arrests of media personnel tend to escalate during election periods as evidenced during previous elections.
“This places immense responsibility on the authorities to ensure the safety and security of journalists, not just during elections, but always during the course of their lawful professional duties.  For instance, in 2016, a total of 23 journalists were unlawfully arrested or detained while exercising their right to media freedom.
“A total of 12 journalists were assaulted by the police and supporters of Zanu PF while conducting their lawful professional duties of covering events such as protests and demonstrations, as they unfolded. As of October this year, we have recorded five cases involving the assaults and unlawful arrest of journalists while on duty,” the letter reads.local

Clever Taperamoyo

MASVINGO – Council on Tuesday unveiled various Civic Awards won by the city over the past year, with emphasis being put on improving service delivery.
The Civic Awards were won during the 2016/2017 period as various stakeholders noted improvements in such fields as service delivery, budgetary control, gender equality, municipal services and community engagement.
Addressing people who came to witness the unveiling, City of Masvingo mayor, Hubert Fidze said council was preoccupied with improving services especially the provision of sufficient clean water to drink as well as regular refuse removal.
He also said vehicles purchased through the road levy were now being used to resurface some roads around the city.
“These Civic Awards are a testimony of the cordial relationship between residents as ratepayers and council. Without unity and working together among us, we could not have won these awards,” Fidze said.
City of Masvingo Town Clerk, Adolf Gusha also weighed in and praised the unity of purpose that he said existed in council despite the Councillors being of different political persuasions.
He emphasised the need to ensure that essential services like water, sanitation, health and burial facilities are always available regardless of who is in charge.local

Clever Taperamoyo

City of Masvingo mayor Hubert Fidze on Wednesday, October 18, launched the Mayor’s Christmas Cheer Fund 2017 as part of efforts to mobilise resources to give to the disadvantaged this festive season.
The fund is customary fundraising initiative which is designed to mobilise resources that are then distributed to the elderly, the poor, the disabled and disadvantaged children towards Christmas.
Last year, the fund raised some US$7 015 which was donated to such charities as Copota school for the blind, Alpha Cottages children’s home, Association for the Visually Handicapped, Pioneer Trust, Masvingo General Hospital and Mucheke Old People’s Home.
Fidze made a passionate plea to the public to show generosity to the less fortunate members of the community.
“Like I have done over the previous years, I am making an appeal to the business community and individuals to give the less fortunate people in our community a reason to smile this festive season,” Fidze said.
He also took the opportunity to urge residents to serve water saying at the moment, council was not only able to pump 30 mega litres of water per day against an average daily consumption requirement of 48 mega litres.local