THE SHANTY AREA IN MANZINI

Sir,

I have known and lived a considerable portion of my life in the city of Manzini - famously known as Eswatini’s hub - since the early 70’s. During the colonial era, it was known as Bremersdorp, whatever that means in Afrikaans.

I started my schooling there, worked there, left to live in other places within and outside Eswatini, but the city has always had its alluring attraction for me and many others. It has incessantly drawn back some of us to live in it over the years.
I walk through and around it every week and know almost all its nooks and crannies. In short, I am part of the street savvy residents.

diverse population

During my early schooling days in the early 70’s, it was what you would call a one-horse town, with barely more than one street.
Today, it is a bustling city with a diverse population, inhabited and visited by people from far and wide - from locals to people from faraway northern parts of the continent and beyond. Some, legally or otherwise, come from countries in the East, who run businesses - many posing as investors, but in reality are shady business people.

The city has grown and developed in leaps and bounds. Sadly, in spite of its upmarket business buildings, alluring retail shopping centres, opulent malls and offices, some of its landscape faces have remained underdeveloped and downright still portraying traces of faces from the 70’s.
As you can see from the pictures attached which I took recently early one morning, before the place exploded into its usual, daily hype of activity, there is one business place just below the Kentucky Fried Chicken eatery, which resembles a shanty area.
This is where its shady business merchants conduct all kinds of businesses, including illicit dealings in contraband goods, prohibited drugs - you name it, including a liquor outlet which daily draws its customers like how honey draws bees. What boggles the mind is that the place is right at the centre of town.

slum-like appearance
As you can see, it is a place not fit to jostle for business with its upmarket neighbours.
It is a place frequented by those who vent their stress, passing time imbibing in alcoholic beverages, where deals are made and concluded. Its shady and slum-like appearance sticks like a sore thumb, tainting and taunting the development taking place around it. It has been like this for as long as I can remember.
I always ask myself if the Manzini Municipality is aware of how the place blots the image of the city and if they are, why are they not hounding its owner to develop it?

Seriously, if we are intent as a country marching to 2022, such undeveloped and filthy places right at the centre of the Central Business District (CBD) area have no place at all.

As if that is not enough, the Manzini Bus Rank with its sloppy, unpaved, potholes-riddled parking areas where minibuses ply their trade is another area which sticks out like a sore thumb. Go to the city of Mbabane and see the vast difference between the two bus terminuses. Venture through the sidewalks of some areas in the hub city, it is a nightmare.

congestion of traffic
Vendors of all types of wares proudly and defiantly at times, occupy the sidewalks reserved for pedestrians and we are forced to jaywalk on the lanes used by traffic, at risk of being hit by passing cars. At the exit and entrance road used by minibuses and buses leading into and out of the bus terminus, towards Mavuso Trade Centre, the road is a nightmare, riddled with a motley collection of potholes and the congestion of public service traffic during peak hours is outrageous and phenomenal.  Ooooh and the places of drinking, especially the one adjacent to the bus terminus, the less said about those areas, the better.

The question that nags every resident’s or visitor’s mind is: Does the city of Manzini still have a council? Judging from some of the dilapidated, filthy and unhygienic areas in the town, the question begs answers. Marching to 2022? Your guess is as good as mine! Cities like Mbabane maybe have an above average chance. But unless our hub municipality pulls its socks up and develop places like those you see in the pictures, they are being left behind by emerging towns like Piggs Peak, Nhlangano and Buhleni.

Alex Nxumalo 76058449

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