By Tatenda Chitagu
CHIREDZI-A low-lying, impassable bridge in Zimbabwe’s south-eastern district of Chiredzi in Masvingo province has cut off the minority Tshangaan tribe from essential services.
Chilonga Bridge in the Lowveld is the shortest link to Chiredzi town across Runde River with its vast rural Tshangaan speaking communities of Chilonga, Chikombedzi, Boli, Mahlanguleni, Mabalauta and Malipati through to Sango Border Post.
Chilonga bridge was built as an alternative causeway to Chipinda Pools Bridge which was washed away by Cyclone Eline-induced floods in 2000. However, the low lying bridge gets buried in water whenever Runde River is flooded forcing travelers to seek very long, alternative and expensive routes.
Cyclone Eline, with wind speeds of 120km per hour, walloped Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique with unrestrained fury, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
It hit Zimbabwe from early February to early March, resulting in 136 deaths.
About 60 000 houses were destroyed, 15 000 toilets carved in, 54 clinics and 538 schools were also damaged by the Cyclone, according to the Civil Protection Unit (CPU).
After the carnage, Chilonga bridge, a narrow structure which is often submerged by floods and becomes impassable during the rainy season, emerged as an alternative to Chipinda Pools Bridge. However, Chilonga bridge has earned a place of infamy among communities.
Currently, Chilonga Bridge is sealed off due to the rains, according to Chiredzi District Development Coordinator (DDC) Lovemore Chisema.
The “killer” bridge is the only short route to Chiredzi, the commercial capital of the hundreds of thousands of communal farmers in the area who rely on the city for their goods and services.
The government has repeatedly promised to build a bigger and easily accessible bridge at Chilonga.
But 25 years later, there is no relief for communities in the northern and southern parts of Chiredzi district. Chipinda Pools Bridge has not been repaired either.
“We have been greatly inconvenienced by the low-lying bridge due to failure by government to replace and reconstruct a bigger bridge like the original one as we cannot cross to Chiredzi town where we get most of our services,” says Tsakilani Mundau, a villager from Chipinda under chief Chilonga.
Another villager, Agnes Velemu from Velemu Village, says some patients have lost their lives on their way to hospital after failing to cross the bridge during the rainy season.
“Sick villagers seeking critical medical attention have also died after failing to cross the river or due to delays while using the longer route of travelling to Chiredzi via Rutenga,” Velemu says.
Velemu says one must travel over 250 km on an inaccessible road to reach the town that is otherwise just 35 km away via a short route through the dangerous bridge that is always submerged in the rainy season.
The construction of the country’s largest inland water reservoir, Tugwi Mukosi, has not helped matters as the Runde River which passes through Chilonga Bridge frequently bursts its banks when the dam floodgates are opened.
Many people have drowned as the vehicles they will be travelling in were washed away while attempting to cross or have been killed by hippopotamus in the flooded river using home-made canoes.
Snapshot of people that died at the bridge:
In February 2022, three family members died when their car was washed away while crossing the low level bridge.
A few days later a member of the police sub aqua unit who was searching for the bodies of the three also drowned.
The following month, a veterinary officer, Sebastine Shindi, drowned while crossing the river with his motorbike. His body was found being eaten by crocodiles, with the head missing.
In April 2022, an employee of mobile telecommunications company NetOne, Samson Zvarimwa, and a female passenger, Loice Maradze, drowned as their vehicle was swept away as they tried to cross the flooded river. These forced authorities to seal off the bridge, although the order was not implemented due to the absence of police roadblocks on either sides of Runde river.
In February 2021, Tafadzwa Mafungauchi drowned near Chilonga bridge as he tried to cross the flooded river using a canoe which capsized after a hippo attack, according to the police.
In January 2019, a Chiredzi Rural District Council employee died while crossing at the bridge
In January 2013, four people drowned when a tractor that was towing a commuter omnibus was swept while crossing the river at the low level bridge.
Lies and broken promises:
Several promises have been made by government to reconstruct a high, passable bridge since then.
Still, there is no relief for communities in the northern and southern parts of Chiredzi district. Citizens whose lives depend on the bridge are caught in the middle of the failed promises.
“Our hopes for Chilonga bridge reconstruction have since been washed away. We now doubt government’s sincerity on the matter. The revival of the project keeps popping up when its election time,” said another villager, Hatred Mtakwa, who sells wares at Chilonga shops near the bridge.
In 2017, then transport and Infrastructural Development minister Joram Gumbo said government was mobilizing ZW$200 billion for the construction of a new bridge ‘soon’.
In February 2018, ahead of the 2018 elections held in July, Gumbo toured the low-lying bridge and insisted that Government would finance building of a new all-weather structure. By April 2018, only ZW$3 million was raised, with a ‘teaser’ of just ZW$500 000 advance payment having been made for initial works at the site, with engineers deployed on the ground to do topographic surveys, according to then Masvingo Provincial Administrator Felix Mbetsa.
But sooner was going on to be latter for Gumbo: he has since been moved to the President’s Office implementing and monitoring government projects. The reconstruction project did not take off during his tenure under the Transport Ministry.
Sources in the Ministry of Transport said about ZWL$500 000 was released in 2018 but it was not enough to fund the project.
“That money was even inadequate to purchase requirements for the substructure works. It was eventually eroded by Statutory Instrument 33 of 2019 (SI33 of 2019),” a source said.
The SI ordered the transacting public to use the Zimbabwe dollar as the sole legal currency from February 22, 2019, for accounting and other purposes.
In April 2019, talks of reviving the Chilonga bridge project resurfaced. This time, however, the funds raised for the project-whose cost had gone to ZWL$8 million, were insufficient. Instead, US$20 million was the actual cost of the project, according to consultants hired to do the feasibility studies.
The same month, the government said it had identified a new site for the bridge, located a few meters away from the original one, admitting it had failed to raise US$20 million and would opt for a cheap design.
In August 2019, government said it was going to float a tender for a local consultant to construct the low cost design bridge by year-end, something which did not come to pass.
Fast forward to March 2022. The talks, which had fizzled out, again gained currency, with then Deputy Finance Minister Clemence Chiduwa vowing that this time the government ‘is making good’ of its long deferred promise to construct a new bridge after setting aside nearly ZWL$4 billion for the project. Chiduwa said the floating of the tender was going to be done ‘in due course’
The tender was never flighted. Chiduwa has since been replaced by President Mnangagwa’s son, David, as Deputy Finance Minister.
DDC Chisema said government is seized with the recontruction of Chilonga Bridge and takes the issue seriously.
“Government is concerned with the construction of Chilonga bridge and plans are still there to construct the bridge. However, for progress and timelines, talk to the Ministry of Transport,” said Chisema.
In the 2023 budget, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube allocated ZWL$2 billion (US$2 million) for the re-construction of the Chilonga bridge, a figure which is a drop in the ocean given the initial estimated cost of US$20 million tabled by consultants hired to do feasibility studies for the project in 2019.
Last year, Deputy Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Joshua Sacco repeated the old explanation that government had since identified four sites for the bridge and investigations to establish the most convenient one were underway.
Sacco was responding to questions raised by Chiredzi Central Member of Parliament (MP) Ropafadzo Makumire who quizzed him on when the government was going to address the Chilonga bridge issue.
Sacco did not respond to enquiries by this reporter in a follow up effort to establish how far the government has gone with the construction of the bridge since he repeated the same excuse said in 2019.
His boss, transport Minister Felix Mhona was not picking or terminated calls in various attempts to get a comment from him.
It is another rainy season, and it is not a matter of if, but when, hordes of other lives will be lost again at the killer bridge
And the Tshangaan community members, who feel marginalized, doubt the bridge will ever be re-constructed.
*Banner Image: A flooded Chilonga Bridge (Image courtesy of TellZim News)