By Tendai Guvamombe.
Harare, Zimbabwe. (News of The South) – An atmosphere of exhilarating mode engulfed the Matapi residents as they went sphree expressing high magnitude of appreciation to the City Fathers following a surprise renovation of Block 4 Hostels.
According to Lisa Magonese, a lady who lived at the Hostel during her entire time from birth expressed excitement at the recent developments which came at a time when rest of the blocks are reported to have exceeded thier timeline.
“The developments came to us as a wonderful blessing all the infrastructure were in bad shape, sewer breakages, malfunctioning of electric cables and most women were afraid either to be victimized at night and sometimes robbery cases were also increasing due to absence of light, but now we have found hope to continue living here, the developers are working to renovate windows and sewer reticulalation,” she said.
Edward Wakatama another resident who echoed similar sentiments said the state of the hostels were nolonger permitting residents to host family gatherings as the extent of dilapidation had riched a point beyond level of human inhabitants.
“I didn’t know that these flats are this beautiful since the painting of this building I nolonger see the old Matapi hostels we are used to, to all I see is a good place just for human inhabitants, we are now confident to host family gatherings unlike the previous moments where we could discourage relatives from visiting.”
However residents are also appealing to the City Fathers and developers to priorities an extension of the same block gutted by an inferno sometime last year.
Matapi Flats in Mbare now renovated
“As much as we really appreciate
the recent developments to ameliorate our standards of living I think the developers should first renovate our block which was destroyed by fire last year where many families were affected including children,” exclaimed another resident on condition of anonymity.
Currently the flats have been painted outside as well as the inside corridors with window panes being replaced creating new texture of amazing looks.
Following President Mnangagwa’s visit sometime last year when the extension of Block 4 was grounded to an inferno , FGC, came to the rescue of the perturbing situation in partnership with City of Harare.
Matapi flats were built more than 100 years ago when British settlers colonised Zimbabwe and took over the land now called Harare which belonged to zezuru Paramount Chief Mbari. Mnare was named after Chief Mbari and blacks were pushed to live in Mbare close to the city centre. The black people were used as cheap labourers and they were used to build Harare CBD and other suburbs in the city.
Matapi Flats renovated
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