[Take careful note, all you naysayers… of the remarks below pertaining to “ablution facilities installed during the COLONIAL ERA!”… take note… that in 25 years… the “new Black Govt”, “doing things for the good of the Blacks”… was unable to set up new toilet facilities, etc! They were probably too busy stealing all the public money. Take note… that during Colonial Times… WHITE PEOPLE… PLANNED CITIES and THOUGHT OF THE FUTURE… a habit which Blacks all too often do not care about. Just as Johannesburg’s infrastructure is in danger… after years of ANC wastage, mismanagement, etc… so too do we see what is happening in Harare.

Let me tell a Colonial story:
Look at how you now get 15 Blacks now living in a house built only for 6. I remember my parents often telling the Blacks: “If you want a higher standard of living you must have less children – like we do – then you can afford to give them a better education, etc.” Of course the Blacks never listened to any good, well-meaning advice Whites gave them, because that is the spiteful nature of Black African people. They don’t even listen to the advice of White people even when it is obvious that Whites practise what they preach.

Blacks always run around saying we were trying to “kill them” by telling them to have less children. But we had less children – so what the hell is their problem? Is it a sin saying to them: Try and have less that 6 or more children? Its common sense… and there is no evil in it… just good commonsense and sound advice.

But no… Blacks want to breed like rabits… Show me any affluent society in the world where people breed like rabbits and have a high standard of living! It does not exist.

So… Blacks breed uncontrollably… and then they wonder why nobody has any houses; why they run out of land in their huge countries; why so many people are poor and why they can’t educate their 6 or more children.

But… in steps God… and God’s Physical Laws… and overcrowding leads to disease and more poverty… and more poverty spawns more hideous crimes.

Blacks flaunt God’s physical Laws (which the rest of us abide by)and then they suffer the consequences and they run off screaming like babies saying that Africa… Garden of Eden that it is… Is a cruel harsh place. I’d like to see the spoiled brat Blacks trying to make a living in the desert… like the Jews do. The Jews can take hell and turn it into heaven – why? Because they are logical, disciplined and they work hard. But the Blacks, God’s spoiled brat children, get the Garden of Eden and they screw it up and then they run around blaming Whites, Colonialism, Apartheid and GOD for giving them a bum rap. Jerks. Maybe they must watch their foul mouths and bad-mouthing the many blessings God showered upon them… maybe God won’t put up with their spoiled-brat ways for too long! Jan]

Harare, A ‘Health Time Bomb’: Experts

MOST of Harare’s high-density suburbs are sitting on a health time bomb because of overcrowding, health experts have warned. They are convinced the overcrowding has strained excessively the old and crumbling ablution facilities installed during the colonial era.

Diseases such as scabies, Tuberculosis (TB), diarrhoea, measles and dysentery, some of which were last reported before independence, have resurfaced due to overcrowding and the general shortage of drugs. The magnitude of the problem is alarming, they said.

The threat of disease is further compounded by the critical water shortage currently being experienced in the capital city.

The problem is most profound in the high-density areas of Mbare, Highfield, Kambuzuma, Epworth, Tafara, Mufakose and Dzivarasekwa, where Harare’s poorest inhabitants reside.

It is estimated that Harare has more than 2,5 million people and nearly half a million are in desperate need of accommodation.

Presently, an average of 15 people stay at every house, built on stands measuring 200m, in Harare’s high-density suburbs. Such houses were built to accommodate a maximum of six people only.

The executive director of Community Working Group on Health (CWGH), Itai Rusike, said overcrowding in Harare’s high-density suburbs has reached crisis levels, creating potentially “explosive disease epidemic situations”.

He said diseases such as scabies, which were last reported during the colonial era, were beginning to emerge 25 years after independence, and that this was an indication of the collapse of the health sector.

“It is a time bomb, a huge problem indeed. Late last year, we had an outbreak of scabies in Kambuzuma, a disease which we last heard about during Smith’s regime” said Rusike.

He said after 25 years of independence, communicable diseases such as scabies, Tuberculosis (TB), diarrhoea, measles and dysentery were rampant in areas such as Mbare, Epworth, Mufakose and Dzivarasekwa, where people live in crowded single rooms.

Director of the Harare-based Institute of Water and Sanitation Development (IWSD), Engineer Ngoni Mudege, said houses designed to accommodate a family of six were taking up to 15 people, a condition which he said was a rececipe for the spread of communicable diseases.

Mudege said due to overcrowding sanitation systems were failing to cope, resulting in waste piling up in the pipes.

“The sewer is designed to service a specific number of people and this is one the case now. In books, we have the best town planning system in the region but we fail in the application of our by-laws,” Mudege said.

He said the situation in most high-density areas had gotten out of hand, especially in flats such as Nenyere and Matapi in Mbare.

IWSD says toilets in Mbare are overcrowded and most of them do not flush and up to 1 300 people share one communal toilet with only six squatting holes. In addition to poor latrines the urban poor also face solid waste and drainage problems.

“If you are crowded you lose ventilation, which leads to the spread of opportunistic infections such as TB. At the moment, the potential of a Cholera outbreak is very high because of overcrowding,” Mudege said.

Harare City Council said inadequate housing was one of the biggest social problems facing the city, which has suffered heavily from political interference from central government.

In its 2003 annual report, which is the latest, the department said the shortage of accommodation in Harare had led to the mushrooming of shacks, which are a health hazard to the inhabitants.

“Proliferation of backyard shanties for human habitation constructed of various assorted materials resulting in overcrowding conditions under unhygienic conditions and the straining of municipal services remain the city’s perennial social problem,” said Harare City Health Director, Dr Lovemore Mbengeranwa, in a forward to the report.

The report said conditions at Dzivarasekwa and Hatcliffe squatter settlements had deteriorated to “deplorable levels” creating potentially explosive disease epidemic situations.

“Pulmonary tuberculosis remained the major communicable disease notified, accounting for 5 536 cases (51.6 percent) out of the 10 729 cases investigated,” says the report.

Similar problems are also prevalent at Porta Farm, some 30 kilometres west of Harare, where squatters from the capital were dumped in preparation of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1991.

Harare City Council spokesperson, Leslie Gwindi, said the council was working with the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, in trying to solve the housing crisis in the city.

“We are the implementers of government policy and we are working with central government to Provide accommodation to solve the problem,” said Gwindi.

But Rusike blamed the government for failing to provide decent accommodation to people. The government, which is aware of the impending catastrophe, has not taken any action to avert a crisis, he said.

Source: AllAfrica.com
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200504180572.htm…br>From: Zimbabwe Standard (Harare)
Date: April 17, 2005
By: Caiphas Chimhete