IN a rare display of humility, dedication to cause and accessibility, Matabeleland South Provincial Affairs and Devolution minister Albert Nguluvhe jumped on a “chicken bus” to fulfil an appointment with Beitbridge residents.
Nguluvhe’s official vehicle developed a problem near Masvingo and he got into the first car that stopped for him, a truck that left him at Ngundu on its way to the lowveld late at night.
He later got onto a bus headed for Beitbridge arriving well after midnight.
Nguluvhe learnt that his car would only be released at 10am on Thursday, exactly the time he was to meet with Beitbridge stakeholders and residents for the devolution agenda.
“So I had to think quickly and took one of my old cars and started out instructing my other staff to follow with the other car since I would be going to my office in Gwanda,” Nguluvhe said in his apology to stakeholders he made to wait extra hour.
Outside Masvingo, he said, his car had a tyre burst.
He secured the vehicle and flagged down a lift and a trucker took him as far as Ngundu since the trucker was headed to Chiredzi.
He joined Ngundu vendors at the bus stop to Beitbridge and later a bus headed for the border town arrived much to his relief.
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He rode the bus for 200km and arrived home at 3am.
“That is why I am late to this meeting and please accept my apology,” he said to an applause from about 400 people including Beitbridge heads of government departments, parastatals, church leaders and the district's traditional leaders.
“I have also recommended that all traditional leaders, our chief, be allocated farms in their respective districts across the province. How can we have farms when the custodians of the land do not have. Let us correct that,” he said.
Nguluvhe, who turned from a top spy to a politician, was appointed resident minister in his province where he is MP for Beitbridge East.
He has been going across the province gathering notes from district to district for what he said would inform his recommendations to his principal, President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
