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By Martin Muleya.

City Parking handed over donation worth over $30 000 to the Harare’s Mayor’s Christmas Cheer Fund to help ease Cyclone Idai victims on their needs, with a substantial amount coming from its employees.

The donation according to the company officials came natural as the people in Manicaland province are in dire need of assistance.

City Parking Public Relations Manager Francis Mandaza in an interview on the sidelines of a handover of donation of clothes and groceries from seven truck loads availed by the City of Harare at Mutare Government complex last Sunday said his company was a socially entiquitte that worked with the people of Zimbabwe even in bad times.

“City Parking manages street and off street parking in Harare and is responsible for the order currently prevailing in the central business district of Harare in terms of availability of space for parking and parking compliant. Basically the donation to Cyclone Idai comes so natural because we are a company that is socially entiquitte, we are Zimbabweans and we are one people in Zimbabwe.

“I think this is what has motivated us to donate some food items and non-food items both at corporate level and basically as employees of City Parking. We are imploring other corporates and everyone that no donation is little. Let’s contribute to this cause, we are the people responsible for making this world a better place and especially during this needy time where Manicaland people are in dire need of help.

” City Parking we have contributed over $30 000 we have forwarded it to the Harare’s Mayor’s Christmas Cheer Fund and the mayor will hand over the donation to the Cyclone Idai victims on our behalf,” said Mandaza.

Meanwhile the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Cde July Moyo has indicated that Government’s efforts had shifted from food and clothing to opening new routes that will lead to Kopa area and Ngangu township where the roads were badly damaged.

“What is hampering our progress is that we have boulders that were dumped in the areas and we believe our people were buried underneath. We have not been able to find bigger machinery to retrieve them. The situation is very serious and we need to get equipment out there.
” So all our efforts are now to open up routes either through Chipinge or through Kopa to Peacock from Jopa to Silverstream. Once we do that, I think we will be able to have more figures on those who died in the cyclone.

“We have on the ground helicopters dropping foodstuffs in these areas but that is not enough, we really need to start moving using trucks and that is the measure we are trying to implement,” said Moyo.

Relief efforts to ease plight of people affected by Cyclone IDAI in Chimanimani has taken days to reach the epicentre of the disaster owing to impassable roads.

Asked on the number of people still missing and what Government was doing to make sure those who were swept away by the floods in Mozambique, were accorded a descent burial home, Minister Moyo reiterated that what was worsening the situation particularly with regards to Kopa was because Kopa was a trading area and artisinal mining also took place there hence it was difficult for the Ministry to give accurate figures on the number of people who lost their lives in Kopa.

It is believed those who died could have been hit by the mud/rockfalls as Chimanimani is a mountainous area with several households built under the mountains dotted in the district.

“On the Mozambican side at least we can now account for eight people whose pictures were send to us before they were buried. But we were not able to locate their relatives. Whole villages in the valley Nyahode/Rusitu rivers were swept away. No one knows how many people were in those houses by the time the floods reached the area. The area is further compounded by the fact that it was a trading area where people came in large numbers to buy bananas and artisinal mining, so we cannot entirely give the exact number of people who perished there, added Minister Moyo.

Nyahode river at Kopa business centre burst its banks resulting in the flooding of Gata Police camp and surrounding households.

Cyclone IDAI hit Chimanimani district with heavy rainfall and violent winds a fortnight ago receiving 600mm of rainfall. Areas affected include Chimanimani urban, Charleshood farm, Machongwe, Vhimba and Kopa growth point.

Support for the Cyclone IDAI victims has primarily focused on activities related to the response phase with little attention and sparse resources devoted to other phases of the disaster cycles preparedness, recovery and rehabilitation of which Mayor of Harare Cllr Herbert Gomba promised to avail heavy machinery from three local authorities (Mutare, Bulawayo and Harare) for three weeks to help in rehabilitating roads in Chimanimani.

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