KUWADZANA legislator Betty Nhambu-Kaseke (Zanu PF) on Tuesday applauded President Robert Mugabe for announcing that a Marriages Bill will be brought before Parliament, saying the Bill would solve the issue of early child marriages as her constituency was one of the hardest hit.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
Nhambu-Kaseke was contributing to a motion in reply to the Presidential Speech in the National Assembly.
She said while Kuwadzana had a population of about 90 000 people, there was no police station to deal with the high crime rate experienced in the area.
“The Marriages Bill will be a welcome move because my constituency has not been spared by the curse of early child marriages and this has seen a rise in children dropping out of schools,” the MP said.
“The death rate of young girls during labour is also on the rise in my constituency which has an estimated population of 90 292 with a 55 to 45 female to male ratio.”
She said the population rise in her constituency was due to rural to urban migration, adding it had also put pressure on social amenities such as the constituency’s single satellite clinic which cannot cope with demand.
“Provision of more health facilities in my constituency and other constituencies will assist in managing the mortality rate of those who have been exposed already to early child marriages. Kuwadzana constituency does not have a proper police station. Our police officers are sometimes overwhelmed by the number of cases and crime scenes that are supposed to be attended to due to the population size of my constituency,” she said.
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Nhambu-Kaseke also decried non-collection of refuse in Kuwadzana, which she said was causing flooding and malfunctioning of drainage systems.
“People continue to be robbed of their hard-earned income by land barons. A number of such cases continue to be recorded in my constituency. The Land Development Bill and Co-operative Societies Amendment Bill are, therefore, a welcome development which I do not doubt will address comprehensively the challenges imposed by these fraudsters in our communities,” she said.
The MP said there was lack of running water in Kuwadzana whereby taps would go dry three days in a week.
