GOVERNMENT has reportedly threatened to withhold food handouts to Tokwe-Mukorsi flood victims camped at Chingwizi transit camp as a way of forcing them out of the holding camp after they vowed to resist resettlement before they are compensated.
BY EVERSON MUSHAVA CHIEF REPORTER
The flood victims have resisted relocation to one-hectare pieces of land near the holding camp demanding compensation first before they could move to the new site.
It is understood that Masvingo provincial administrator Felix Chikovo reportedly told the villagers at a meeting on Wednesday that government would withhold food aid until they moved to the new plots.
“He (Chikovo) threatened to give food only to those villagers who would have moved to their plots,” a senior government official told NewsDay yesterday.
Chikovo, the officials said, also tried to arm-twist the villagers by threatening to install new village heads among those who would move out of the holding camp first.
“Government has no money to compensate the flood victims, which is why they are now coming up with coercive methods to get them off the camp,” another source said.
But, Chikovo denied threatening the villagers while admitting they were resisting moving out of the camp before compensation.
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He said he was trying to negotiate with the villagers so that they would see sense in what government was planning to do.
This came as the stance by the villagers to resist resettlement has allegedly torched a spat between Masvingo Provincial Affairs minister Kudakwashe Bhasikiti and Mwenezi district administrator (DA) Stanley Chamisa.
Bhasikiti was reportedly accusing Chamisa of influencing the villagers to resist resettlement.
Chamisa, who has been at the holding camp for the past two months, reportedly left the camp last Friday after Bhasikiti launched a diatribe against him, accusing the DA of sabotaging government plans.
Chamisa yesterday admitted he was not at the holding camp, but denied any feud with Bhasikiti.
“I am temporarily out of Chingwizi. I am on leave. I cannot abandon the people I had been working with at this stage,” Chamisa said yesterday.
Bhasikiti also denied ever accusing Chamisa of influencing the villagers to resist resettlement. He said Chamisa was a “sick man” and had problems with his legs to endure the running-around demanded by his position.
“I never talked to him. He is a sick man. He has problems with his legs,” Bhasikiti said.
But informed officials told NewsDay the fallout between the two arose last Thursday when villagers disembarked from a moving truck that was taking them to their new plots.
The officials said the villagers broke into song and dance and toyi-toyed back to the transit camp vowing to stay put until they were compensated.
“Minister Bhasikiti then accused the DA of influencing the villagers to resist resettlement,” the officials said.
On Monday, Bhasikiti was again forced to abandon a meeting with the villagers after a heavy downpour.
The rains came following dramatic scenes where a certain woman “was possessed by her late husband’s spirit”, and hurled insults at Bhasikiti for “leaving him submerged in the Tokwe-Mukorsi waters”.
The government is facing serious financial challenges to the extent that it was failing to pay workers at the camp their travel and subsistence allowances.
Some 22 police officers, who have been at the camp for the past two months, have also not been paid their travel and subsistence allowances. There were proposals to give the police officers two weeks’ food rations instead.
Lands officials allocating plots were only paid this week after threatening to down tools. The cash-strapped government has been relying on donor support for food and utility services for the flood victims.
