Upgrade communication facilities

By Thupeyo Muleya

Beitbridge Senator, Cde Tambudzani Mohadi has called for an urgent upgrading of communication facilities in the district which she said were hampering development and the monitoring of some critical government projects.

In an interview yesterday, Cde Mohadi appealed for mobile telephone operators to put more base stations in the district were most people were relying on foreign mobile cellular providers from South Africa and Botswana.

“You will realise that most projects are hampered by the lack of communication facilities and in some cases people in the most remote parts of the district have to rely on police radios or foreign mobile service providers.

“Our people are facing a lot of challenges especially in cases of emergencies. There were once some fixed telephones on most business centers in the district but these were vandalized by copper cable thieves.

“As government we are mobilizing resources to revamp the communication systems but we also call on other partners like Net one, Telecel and Econet to assist us in putting up bases stations in our district” she said.

She said the worst affected areas were those in the most remote areas like Limpopo, Jalukanga, Shashe in the west of the border town and Dite, Chaswingo, Chipise, Chituripasi and Tshikwalakwala in the east of the town.

She said they were failing to keep trek of progress on some of the community development projects owing to the poor road network and communication facilities.

“Definitely we cannot be happy when our people are relying on foreign mobile networks while we have three major players who can do that at a lower cost” she said.

The Senator also raised concern over the continued theft of solar panels in most clinics in the district, “We are very worried about the continued thefts of solar panels at several clinics in Beitbridge district and recently thieves broke into Masera and Swereki clinics where they stole solar panels worth thousands of dollars.

“The clinics use solar powered radios for communication. These are essential items in communication and we are now urging the police to act on these cases as a matter of urgency. Our main worry is that we will face communication problems in cases of emergency.” she said.

Cde Mohadi also called for a speedy upgrading of the major link roads which she said were in a bad state after they were extensively damaged by the Cyclone Elyne induced rains.

The community and the government have been failing to repair most of the damaged roads due to the unavailability of resources owing to the current economic climate.

www.herald.co.zw 15 April 2010