A Bridge Too Far

Our Zimbabwe government boasts it has opened a nice new bridge in rural Mvurwi that cost of up to US$ 1.8 million. It’s a piddly little bridge, if you ask me, but the road either side has also been widened and retarred. The old bridge was built in 1974, way before independence, our state media tells us, and on the very same day obligingly reports that the ruling party is now planning its annual conference in the Mvurwi area this year. At least 7,000 delegates are expected along with a couple of thousand more officials and hangers-on. The bridge, it is said, is to help open up the rural hinterland for investment and development. Why has it taken so long when schools and clinics in the district have collapsed? Couldn’t possibly be to make way for the pot-hole and poverty-averse limos of our rulers, could it? (Photo credit: The Herald)