The ManicaPost
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
PERCHED on top of huge sacks of bananas in a Harare-bound seven-tonne truck are Honde Valley farmers who are so determined to get their produce to a better market.
Not even the obvious dangers that come with the meandering Honde Valley terrain, let alone the mist that usually pervades the whole area can deter the haulage truck drivers from cruising at high speed.
Such is the risk that banana farmers from Honde Valley have become used to over the years in their desperate attempt to get their produce to reach the market either in Harare or Mutare.
These farmers and how they have been sacrificing their lives just to sell their produce has ironically not been part of the road safety discourse irrespective of the glaring risk they have been putting their lives.
In a country where the road safety discourse has focused on speeding, overtaking error, not giving way, following too close, reversing error, negligent pedestrian, cyclists and fatigue, one wonders who will spend their time to focus on the safety of the poor farmers of Honde Valley.
Honde Valley is the country’s biggest producer of bananas and families in this greenbelt have been surviving out of the proceeds of the sales of the nourishing fruit.
However, this has come at a cost.
Last Sunday, a haulage truck driver was carrying 23 passengers who are small-scale banana farmers and were proceeding to Harare to sell their produce was involved in a fatal crash.
Five passengers were in the front cab and 18 were in the loading box, ‘comfortably’ sitting on top of 65 sacks filled with bananas as well as their other luggage.
A few metres from Hauna Growth Point, the driver lost control of the vehicle after failing to negotiate a curve due to speeding, resulting in the vehicle veering off the road and landing on its left side.
Seven passengers were killed on the spot, while 13 others were injured
By his own admission, the driver of the truck, Tendai Makwame, who sustained several injuries, said he was speeding and lost control as he approached the curve.
“Yes, I was driving the truck was at a high speed and I failed to control it as I approached the curve. It is not that I am new to this road. I have been driving this truck for the past four years along this route.
“I guess it was just an accident. There was also nothing unusual about the load I was carrying. It was actually half of the load I am used to transporting to the market in Harare,” said the 34-year-old driver in an interview from his hospital bed at Hauna District Hospital.
Even though Mutasa Ward Six Councillor, Cllr Vennah Nyangani confirmed that the place where the accident occurred has been a black spot for a while now, she noted with concern the way banana farmers and their produce are loaded in these trucks.
“From the days of the liberation struggle, Rhodesian soldiers vehicles would overturn at that very same spot.
“Countless accidents have happened at that spot and recently another truck which was carrying bananas veered off the road and killed three people.
“I have been staying near the spot from 1994. I have never encountered ghosts or anything to do with the graveyard, so I actually think that drivers are at fault because they speed, yet the spot is curvy and steep. It is worth noting that the way banana farmers and their produce are loaded into these trucks is a cocktail for disaster.
“It is sad that we can only be heard when an accident like the one that happened last Sunday is reported, but we have always been clamouring for better transport modalities for these banana farmers who are actually feeding the nation,” Mrs Nyangani said.
A local banana farmer, who has also been using the same mode of transport to get her produce to the market in the capital, Mrs Beula Mtisi, said: “We have no choice, but to use these trucks to travel to Harare for better markets.
“I have been doing this for the past 18 years and have sent all my kids to school from the proceeds of this trade.
I understand the risk involved, but somehow I think I do not have any choice because this is just a way to provide for my family.”
