Last Orders at Harrods by Michael Holman

Author:Michael Holman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Africa
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2004-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

17

“Only the lion may piss in the watering hole”

President Josiah Nduka stood in the bay window of his State House study, looking out over Kireba.

Much had changed since that first time he had stood in that study, so many years ago. Then he had looked at a dam, where people swam, and where a handful of sailing craft had been tied up to a wooden jetty.

Today his view was interrupted by a series of obstacles, natural as well as man made. First there was a thicket of mature eucalyptus trees, home to hundreds of crows. Then came rows and clumps of shrubs and bushes, followed by what looked like barracks, but which were in fact the living quarters of middle-ranking staff. Next was a strip of vacant land with the carcass of the occasional rusting car, and which was rumoured to have a few land mines buried below the surface. Then came an electric fence. And finally there was the three-metre-high white wall topped with a roll of razor-wire that surrounded the grounds of State House. And on the other side of that was the now stagnant, weed-encrusted dam that long ago used to be the base for the city yacht club.

Ever since he became president he had wanted to clear the blight that was Kireba. And every few years he sought pledges from aid donors to rehabilitate the slum, and to provide tarred roads, clean water, and electricity, and a primary school and additional clinics.

But the residents did not trust him – they were convinced that were they to move out of their plastic-and-tin shanties to allow the renovation to get under way, they would never again be allowed back. Their land would be sold to supporters of Nduka and his party, and Kuwisha’s middle class would welcome the opportunity to buy residential plots in a location so close to the city centre.

They were right, of course.

And so he had changed tactics. The road that was to run through Kireba would in itself be of little benefit to residents, for there would be no pedestrian access. But if the road were to become accessible, the land alongside the highway would rocket in value. Market forces, that creature the World Bank urged him to set free and let roam across Kuwisha, would come out to play. The gentrification of Kireba would become unstoppable. Housing would indeed become available, but unaffordable for any resident of the slum.

Nduka sighed. Perhaps it was no more than an old man’s dream…

♦

Had the city developed according to any plan, Kireba would never have been allowed in the first place. The very existence of the slum was an accident, going back to a decision to provide cheap land to former soldiers who had served in World War Two. It had been approved by the colonial authority, which had then failed to provide the basic services that the site needed. But planning, whether for white or black residents, had never been the city fathers’ strongest suit.

Just as

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