THE annual Basthara Cultural Festival held recently in the Zambezi region was a traditional blast for the Mayeyi tribe, whose members came out in their numbers to celebrate this prestigious event with pride and joy on Sunday at the Sangwali headquarters.
In a speech read on his behalf by a member of the royal family, Raphael Mwinkanda, chief Boniface Shufu stated that he was proud to reiterate without any reservations that members of his community are peaceful and law-abiding citizens of the region, who have exercised patience and discipline in terms of developmental ambitions.
“We reject tribalism, ethnicity, sexism and other social evils such as gender-based violence as well as the excessive consumption of alcohol and drug abuse. In our quest to remain identified as a tribe, the line between us and those who hate people and those who do not hate them will forever be distinct,” he said.
“The Mayeyi community wants to state clearly that we put enmity between us and tribalism, but not between us and other communities of different tribes. We appreciate the government’s efforts in ensuring that development gets to all corners of this region and the country at large,” he added.
The Mayeyi chief further lauded the government’s Harambee Prosperity Plan, but called for its decentralisation to grassroots’ level.
“I believe the Harambee Prosperity Plan will accelerate the turnaround time on our long-awaited rural development projects such as access to electricity, clean water and, most of all, our communities of Sauzuo and Malenga-lenga’s health services,” he continued. He said members of these communities have to walk long distances to access health services, and therefore called upon government to bring the plan’s initiatives to the people by launching awareness campaigns on the Harambee Prosperity Plan by engaging all traditional authorities in the country to inform them of their role in this plan.
“We are also eagerly waiting for the much talked-about resettlement plans for this area, and also for the development that is expected to create employment opportunities, not only for the Mayeyi community, but for all Namibians.”
He added that drought continues to pose challenges for both humans and livestock, as the water in the Kwando/Linyanti River continues to dwindle to worrying levels. Shufu thus appealed to government for boreholes to be drilled in the conservancy areas of Bbalyerwa, Wuparo and Dzoti, as well as in the Nkasa/Rupura and Mudumu National Parks. This will alleviate the human- wildlife conflict that is expected to increase due to the drought. Furthermore, the community did not harvest anything from their crop fields because of the drought, and would therefore desperately look upon government in terms of drought relief, Shufu added.
He further urged his people to refrain from poaching and illegal hunting in the Mayeyi area which has a lot of wildlife due to the two parks surrounding the area. This makes the area a corridor for wildlife, especially elephants and buffalos, from Botswana to Zambia, and vice versa.
Shufu also encouraged his community to register for customary land rights, stressing that it is crucial, and called upon those who have not yet registered their land to do so.
He also warned the community, especially the youth, not to get involved in land grabbing, but to respect the authorities who are legally assigned to deal with land distribution to perform their work.
