26 May 2025

Vukwi Village Development Committee (VDC) in collaboration with office of the Member of Parliament for Tati West and some councillors in the constituency have raised P25 000 to equip the village’s recently acquired borehole.

Speaking in an interview following the fundraising tournament over the weekend, VDC secretary Ms Mpho Mpuchane said the committee recently purchased a borehole for the village at the sum of P48 000.

“The event was a success as the committee managed to raise P25 000, which would be enough to cover the costs of equipping the borehole as the quotation for material and labour was about P20 500,” she said.

Ms Mpuchane said after receiving the certificate and applying for water rights, they were now raising funds to equip the borehole with solar panels, buy feeding troughs and provide security in the form of CCTV cameras that would be linked to the phones of the VDC executive. Ms Mpuchane stated that the borehole was acquired primarily to provide livestock with clean water from a reliable source at the same time keeping the animals away from ploughing fields.

“Supply of water for livestock will be through the use of a water token and the funds would be deposited into the VDC account,” she said, adding that the committee was planning to venture into gardening and fish farming on a 40X40m piece of land adjacent to the borehole.

Ms Mpuchane explained that they intended to create employment and empower Vukwi residents including People With Disability and the youth. She added that they would offer those in need vegetables from the garden.

Regarding the fundraising tournament, she said about 17 football and nine netball teams participated, with each football team paid P750 while netball teams received P450 each. According to Ms Mpuchane, participating teams comprised youth team from Vukwi, Old Boots (village elders), FC Comrades from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Stress from Francistown, Kalakamati, Mapoka, Gambule.

Masunga/Vukwi Councillor, Mr Refilwe Dube said for value chain addition they wanted to expand their garden and include manufacturing in order to augment government’s efforts of job creation through infrastructure development and processing of farm produce.

This, he said would be accomplished by taking youth out on a benchmarking trips around the country and countries like Zambia and Kenya. Meanwhile, Mr Dube said six councillors contributed P12 000 towards the fundraising activities. ENDS