Tendai Charamba

While prolonged periods of rainfall often come as good news, it is now a different story in the sprawling suburb of Victoria Ranch where the rains are now doing more of harm than good, with residents blaming authorities for the sorry state of infrastructure.

Victoria Ranch developed informally due to the activities of land barons who sold state land to desperate home-seekers but without first making provisions for proper infrastructure as required by regional, town and country planning regulations.

Currently, the prolonged wet spells have wreaked havoc on the roads which have since deteriorated to puddles of deeply potholed muddy surfaces.

The deterioration of the roads has seen motorists abandoning the usual main roads which are now hardly usable.

Gogo Sibanda, a Victoria Ranch resident, lamented the state of the roads and called upon land barons, City of Masvingo and Masvingo Rural District Council to put their heads together.

“As far as I am concerned as a resident, we have three local authorities which have a stake in this crisis, and these are the city council, the rural district council and land barons who made money selling stands. They should come together and build proper roads,” said Freddy Mutema, a kombi driver, said the authorities could begin by attending to the main roads first to improve the suburb’s accessibility.

“They could begin by attending to the main roads first. At the moment, it does not appear like we have any authority responsible for Victoria Ranch yet for you to be able build a house here, you have pay first various fees to land barons and the two councils,” he said.

Other residents complained that the water logged potholes in some roads, coupled with heaps of illegally-dumped garbage, had become breeding ground for mosquitoes.

“At my workplace, we have treated several children suffering skin infections presumed to be a result of contact with contaminated water and mosquito bites,” said a nurse who preferred to remain anonymous.