AT times, the road leading up to Tsholotsho can leave one believing that they are enroute to the proverbial “middle of nowhere”.
Travelling from Bulawayo to Tsholotsho is usually a complex and patient negotiation between whatever vehicle one is aboard and the strip of tarred road that seems to reluctantly beckon one towards the district fondly known as Zhwane to its inhabitants.
Sometimes the road yields encouraging amounts of smooth tar but more often than not, one finds that it is easier to bargain with the dusty paths that surround the lean and stubborn strip. Such is the unceremonious way in which one is ushered into Tsholotsho.
However, once at the Tsholotsho Business Centre, the beating heart of Zhwane, everything changes. During the day, the centre is a buzzing hive, with everything that one expects from a budding town. Deals are struck and money changes hands every minute, with service and goods exchanged at the blink of an eye.
The residential area is a delightful feast for lovers of urban architecture, with houses that seem to have been airlifted from the poshest suburbs in Bulawayo and transplanted right into the dust of Tsholotsho. For more than two decades this part of Tsholotsho was a town in name only.
With Government proclaiming Tsholotsho as a town, however, a brave new world of many possibilities seems to have opened up for one of Matabeleland North’s crown jewels. When Sunday News visited Tsholotsho recently, Chief Mahlathini said he was pleased to see the realisation of a dream that he had long hoped for.
“I am glad that the Government has fulfilled its mantra that it does not want to leave anyone behind. I believe that Tsholotsho should have been a town some years back. When Lupane was given its town status some years back, I was not really happy. I was hoping that status, bringing that university and that hospital would come to us but our road network disadvantaged us but Lupane is on the highway. Now that we have attained that status, I can look at the benefits it brings,” he said.
Chief Mahlathini said the attainment of town status would allow Tsholotsho to exploit resources it had been haemorrhaging to other parts of the country because of a lack of industrial capacity.
“We have a diaspora community that’s building mansions in their villages, now we can encourage them to build them in town.
By so doing, the image of the town also improves. We have timber but because we were looked on as a rural authority, that timber was going from the town to another area. Council will now have authority to invite those interested to come and open their milling companies so that we process this timber here which will open up jobs for young people. Previously we had no industrial site because we did not have town status. Government through the law of devolution has said that raw materials should be processed from their source but this was not the case with ours, as they had to be processed somewhere else,” he said.
Tsholotsho Rural District Council chairperson Councillor Esau Siwela said the attainment of town status was the realisation of a long-standing dream that many administrators had tried to bring to fruition over the years.
“This is an old dream. The previous council tried to make this happen but unfortunately, they could not pull it off in the end.
However, as the council that took over in 2018, we have managed to do it and we are proud of the fact that we are the little team that has managed to bring such a long-standing dream to fruition. Development in Tsholotsho will speed up because a lot of investors were discouraged by the fact that firstly, Tsholotsho was not a town and the road network leading up to it was bad. I think this is something that will help remedy that because we can now speed up the building of the road,” he said.
Council vice-chairperson Councillor Manger Sobani said irrigation schemes, banks and a fire service were some of the amenities that the Tsholotsho’s newly acquired town status would bring.
“I think the proclamation of Tsholotsho’s town status will bring a lot of benefits to the people. For example, we are hoping that projects like the Gwayi-Shangani Dam will be of assistance to the town, in terms of water provision, which will allow people to get into horticultural projects to better their economic fortunes. We are hoping that the attainment of the town status will also mean that our road coming from Bulawayo, which is long overdue for improvement because it is in a rotten state, can also be improved now.
“We still have a few challenges because, for example, we do not have banks but instead we rely on post offices. That in itself is an obstacle because we have quite a few schools and they wish they could bank with institutions that are in close proximity but they cannot do that at the moment. With Tsholotsho becoming a town, we are hoping that more banks will be set up here and that will make everyone’s life a bit easier.
“A lot of people have to go to Bulawayo for such services and that is not ideal. We are hoping that we will also see improvements in our hospital and also the need for a fire brigade because with bigger buildings, we will be in need of such services,” he said.
Tsholotsho Council Health and Social Services chairperson Councillor Lovemore Moyo said the attainment of town status would also speed efforts to bring a sewer system to residential areas around Tsholotsho business centre.
“We want Tsholotsho urban to have a proper sewer system which will make people happy because we have got the houses but they don’t have a proper sewer system. We were unable to do this because of financial constraints but now that we have attained town status, such funds can then be channelled towards Tsholotsho urban.
“The road leading to Tsholotsho needs to be upgraded and even the roads within Tsholotsho need to be upgraded to match the level of town status. We have to work hard to make sure that all these things come to fruition,” he said. – Sunday News
