It is not every day that the community in its diversity feels positively impacted by the works of their leader but Temba Mliswa the Member of the National Assembly for Norton has done exactly that in his quest to uplift the lives of the people in the area he serves.
In his speech in thanking the people of Norton for the emphatic support they gave him that resulted in his resounding election win, Mliswa said the gains that are expected to be seen in the constituency will be to the benefit of everyone.
He called for everyone’s input in creating a formidable team to foster development. In the 23 months he entered office since October 2016 until the present day, the legislator has had time of understanding the challenges facing the Constituency as well as the complexities of the characters of the people who reside in the community.
Mliswa said regardless of political affiliation, he was ready to implement initiatives that will see the Norton generality develop socially and economically. In instances where there may be misunderstandings or disagreements, he encouraged people to put the past behind them and begin on a clean slate.
The hardworking politician said people have the right to access of certain basic amenities and services.
True to his benevolent nature, Mliswa made sure that as he promised five student beneficiaries of the Scholarship Fund began their studies at the Chinhoyi University of Technology on Thursday, 16th August 2018 and wished them success in their studies and urged them to work diligently throughout their chosen degree programmes.
On Friday, 17th August 2018, Mliswa attended the Johannes Masowe Echishanu Fronchidie in Kingsdale where he pledged to assist the congregation source a permanent church site and to build ablution facilities
From Kingsdale, he took the opportunity to attend the comedy night held at Pakare Paye. He was impressed by the level of talent displayed by the young comedians since laughter is often described as the best medicine for life challenges.
Due to his organisational skills, Norton was ablaze with musical festivities on Saturday, 18th August 2018, where Koshen Grounds was the venue for the Bhuru Thanks Norton musical extravaganza. As promised during his election campaign, musical sensation, Jah Prayzah was the highlight of the event and he did not disappoint.
Equally superb performances by Norton-based musicians Mbeu and Jah Signal ensured a day that was filled with merriment.
“Music is a unifying force and I commend those that attended for their spirit of tolerance and unity that prevailed during the day. This same spirit is the spirit that has predominantly prevailed throughout the elections of which I commend all. Now is the time to put political differences aside as we work on developing Norton. Thank you to all the performing artists and most of all thank you Norton! Viva Norton, Viva!
“Still on a musical note, I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate our very own, Samanyanga on recently headling the OppiKoppi Music Festival in South Africa, making him the first foreigner to be accorded such a privilege during the twenty-four years the music fête has been in existence. Norton’s legendary music icon continues to make Norton and Zimbabwe proud. We wish Tuku continued success in his illustrious career,” Mliswa ssaid.
After the festivities of that afternoon, Mliswa took the opportunity to hold a meeting with a number of Village Heads at his offices where he touched on various developmental initiatives as well as reinforcing the responsibilities each one has in ensuring developmental programmes are implemented and maintained.
On Sunday, 19th August 2018, he held a meeting with the parents at Dudley Hall School. The agenda of the meeting was to discuss various challenges being faced by the parents as well as to discuss developmental initiatives. The issues of tuition fees was tabled, where the parents submitted the sentiments that the fees being levied by the school are exorbitant and should be reduced in line with other similar schools. Various other concerns such as excessive educational trip fares, remedial lessons fees, meeting notifications, purchase of a new school bus, durawall erection, renewal of the current SDC and financial accountability were also tabled at the meeting.
“The advantage of creating open forum ensures that such aforementioned challenges may be resolved through dialogue and round table engagements. It is important that there is transparency in operational costs vis a vis income. The more involved parents are in understanding the complexities of running a school then the more appreciative they become of the costs involved and likewise when schools understand parents expectations the more in tune they become to expenditure and prioritisation. Each issue therefore was resolved to be tackled with the appropriate remedial action to be instituted accordingly,” said Josephine Mukute, the Chief Operations Director to Hon Mliswa.