Anthony Muzondo
Bilcro Investments says the rains which ponded Masvingo City on November 06, 2024, resulted in goods worth an estimated US$5000 going to waste in its shop along Greenfield Street, EnviroPress can report.
The heavy rains saw many streets getting flooded, with much of the water pouring into the shop as the city’s insufficient drainage system failed to cope.
Bilcro Operations Manager William Scott told EnviroPress that the diversified hardware, building and farm equipment company was still assessing the full extent of the damage.
“We are still assessing the extent of the damage, but preliminary estimates suggest 5000 dollars’ worth of stock and equipment was damaged. Most of the things that got spoiled cannot be dried or salvaged, so they can only be discarded,” said Scott.
He suggested that inadequate drainage in the city were to blame, saying bigger and better maintained systems would have been more resilient.
“Despite speculations on social media that the drains were blocked, I would also like to think that they are small, which of course meant they were not capable of disposing of the large volumes of water over a short period of time. This caused a push-back of water into the store, as the drain could not absorb it all,” said Scott.
Click here to watch a video of the flooded shop
Shop Manager Michael Chimhambane described the flooding of the shop as a blow to their business.
“We lost much of our materials in stock, and this includes ceiling boards, wooden boards, doors, cement and also power supply generators,” said Chimhambane.
The loss comes in the context of the recent COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where developing countries continued their push for greater and easier access to loss and damage finance related to the effects of climate change.
The company has now hedged vulnerable points of the shop with sand bags that are expected help act as a bulwark again future flood waters.
Other businesses that suffered similar losses on the day include Masvingo Famers Inn.
Masvingo Town Clerk Edward Mukaratirwa admitted that the city’s drainages had grown too small for a growing city, but insisted that they were perfectly functional for their size.
“We need to upgrade the city’s whole drainage system because the rainfall is different from the way it used to be. The design of our drainage system does not have capacity to handle such volumes. Besides, the population has increased as compared to when the drainages were initially constructed,” said Mukaratirwa.
