A Beitbridge businessman has contributed nearly half the amount required to buy
spares for a faulty electricity transformer in an area he does not even live.
Dr Felix Venge, who runs Samas Butchery and a Leisure Eating Place in
Dulibadzimu paid R1000 towards R2500 needed for spares to repair a faulty
Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company transformer that has
left several houses in a section of Baobab suburb in darkness.
Residents of the suburb were contributing towards the required amount when Dr
Venge asked them to collect the amount towards the required figure.
Almost instantly, the residents reacted with appreciation messages pouring on the
residents’ group.
Thank you Dr Venge. In my language we say, izenzo kungemazwi, loosely
translated, deeds not words! #siyavukasiyezamafuthi, said Zimborders General
Manager, Nqobile Ncube.
Thank u Felix u are a practical man, said businessman, farmer and shipping agent
Elias Chibi.
Just as many residents started posting messages, Venges contribution seemed to
have opened wallets as residents started pledging various amounts towards the
cause.
A source at ZETDC said the transformer feeding the affected section developed
faults due to overloading blamed at a certain house within the residential area.
Power in that area was meant for domestic use but consumption at a certain place
became commercial hence overloading the transformer which had numerous
breakdowns prior to this major fault.
“You will notice residents in that area are not new to this problem; just that this time,
the transformer was extensively damaged," said the source.
Venge is a communal farmer, who has transformed his rural home into a thriving
irrigated plot that feeds his businesses and vegetable markets of Beitbridge.
He produces cucumbers, green vegetables, green maize, paprika, tomatoes and
also has broiler chickens and a piggery project that has inspired several farmers in
his Matshiloni neighbourhood.
Many farmers in his home village have taken a leaf from his plot and drilled
boreholes, making the once dependant village into a productive place of note.
Apart from shops in Beitbridge, Venge runs another leisure outlet at Chicago Village,
where he offers dishes of fish and the popular road-runner or chicken makhaya – a
dish of traditionally prepared rural chicken.
A former lecturer at the Zimbabwe Institute of Management, Dr Venge, who is Zanu
PFs candidate for Ward 2 in Urban Beitbridge remained modest and said his gesture
is purely humanitarian.
I am a businessman and I plough back, most of the people affected by this blackout
once in a while buy from my outlets and how else can I thank them? I have to give
back, he said.
At the beginning of the year, Venge took Dynamos players for lessons of life when
the team visited Beitbridge in a pre-season training camp.
It is still my work within the community I live. I have to work for Zimbabweans, he
said.
