DEVELOPMENT-ZIMBABWE: Victoria Falls — A Town Of Contradictions

By Mercedes Sayagues Reprint | | Print |

Mercedes Sayagues

VICTORIA FALLS, ZIMBABWE, Jul 21 1999 (IPS) - Driving from the airport at Vic Falls, Zimbabwe’s top tourist resort, you may see antelope, warthog and elephants in the bush and, above the tree line, the spray of “the smoke that thunders”, the majestic cataracts.

What you can’t see is the other side of Vic Falls, for the shacks are better hidden than the kudu.

Vic Falls, located some 876 kilometres from the capital Harare, is a town of contradictions. Take, for example, The Kingdom, a posh new hotel to be formally opened in August. Many residents see it as yet one more time when they fail to benefit from tourism. They complain that most jobs at The Kingdom, as well as at other hotels, went to Shona people from other provinces, and that the local Ndebele people are systematically discriminated.

In March, angry locals planned a protest against The Kingdom’s hiring policies. It was cancelled, but organisers say they will try again, perhaps at the opening.

Zim Sun, owner of The Kingdom, denies the charges. Spokesman Ray Mawerera says the recruitment was aboveboard, among candidates with a residence certificate signed by a councillor.

Residents point out it is easy to get such a certificate if you have the right connections. Locals like Khumbulani Ncube recall seeing men and women get off trains and buses loaded with more luggage than needed for a day interview, boasting they already had the jobs.

The chair of the municipal council, Douglas Dube, says The Kingdom reneged on a verbal agreement on hiring locals. “People have a right to demonstrate. We need to show central government what happened,” he says.

Mawerera concedes that none of the managers at Zim Sun’s hotels in Vic Falls are Ndebele. The same applies to the top 10 hotels in Vic Falls, adds Silas Kuphe, a travel agent and director of Vic Falls Training College.

“Each manager seeks to employ people where he comes from,” says Kuphe. “People feel badly with this unfairness.”

The problem is not new. Three years ago, a study by the International Union for Conservation of (IUCN) warned: “The tourist facilities present a vision of luxury and wealth which many visitors expect and are willing to pay for.”

“This contrasts with the living conditions and expectations of the majority of people living in the area. Recent events of civil unrest … are forerunners of what could happen if issues of poverty and equity are not addressed. If they are not, the sustainability of tourism is threatened,” it warns.

The mugging in early June of three young British women on main street at 7:30 pm underscores this point.

The study recommended building “a sense of partnership and responsibility, so that both company and community have a stake in the viability of tourism” through equitable local employment practices, complementary small businesses, and community partnership agreements, beyond charitable support for schools and hospitals.

A walk around Chinotimba township, 15 minutes away on foot from The Kingdom, reveals mind-numbing poverty. A refugee camp is better.

A dozen shacks crowd the small backyard of a two-roomed house. In the middle is a tiny toilet/shower used by 36 people. Each shack pays a monthly rental of 100 Zimbabwe Dollars to the house- dweller, who rents it from the city at 300 dollars each month. One US Dollar is equal to 38 Zimbabwe Dollars.

Donkeys share water points with people. Rubbish is piled up high. Promiscuity is unavoidable. A one-bedroomed council flat is shared by two couples, two single mothers and four children. Each family sleeps on a single bed in one corner, separated by wardrobes and curtains. By the door are shelves where they cook on paraffin stoves.

Not surprisingly, Chinotimba has a high incidence of respiratory and sexually transmitted diseases. It also has Zimbabwe’s highest prevalence of AIDS among pregnant women attending health clinics: 46.5 percent, according to Ministry of Health statistics for 1998.

Deforestation around town, a perennial problem, has intensified with the current shortage of paraffin, the poor’s fuel. Two by- products of tourism, drugs and prostitution, flourish.

Vic Falls infrastructure, planned for 8,000 residents and poorly maintained, struggles with 35,000. “There are problems with roads, storm water drainage, solid waste disposal, housing, schools, health facilities, water supply and recreation amenities. Even the newest facilities, like the hospital and sewage treatment ponds, are failing to cope,” says the IUCN study.

The town, squeezed between national parks land and a minefield from the liberation struggle, exhibits Zimbabwe’s worst housing problems. Newcomers, even those with a job, have to crowd into existing stands.

Kiliff Ndlovu works as a cleaner at a luxury lodge but shares a shack with a brother and a cousin. They sleep on mats and send most of their meagre earnings to the wives and children in drought- prone Lupane.

A 1996 study estimated an average occupancy per stand of 12 people and one shack for every three houses. It should be worse now, since Vic Falls town is Zimbabwe’s fastest growing urban area. Between 1992 and 1995 it grew at an annual 14 percent.

“Our infrastructure, especially sanitation, can’t cope,” says Dube, who complains that the tourist levy is siphoned by Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, and the town gets crumbs.

Not that the town council has been either effective or honest. A top city official was recently sent on forced leave under allegations of mismanagement and corruption laid by an auditing report.

“I tell my friends, let’s stand up, let’s put our own people in council and in Parliament if we want change,” says Nkosilati Jiyane. An accountant with a safari firm, he is the youngest among 11 candidates for city councillors that the opposition party ‘ZAPU 2000’ will field in the local elections in August.

Another is Kuphe. They are banking on the anger and poverty of Chinotimba to vote for change.