By Walter Marwizi

It has been rumoured in conservation circles that rowdy baboons have pulled out an advanced electronic system that monitors the movement of walls at Great Zimbabwe monuments in Masvingo.

And now this is causing headaches as engineers have to travel from Italy to fix the “baboon mess” at the World Heritage site, located about 25 kilometers south-east of Masvingo city.

ZimTracker fact checked the rumor and discovered that it is true.

The vandalised electronic monitoring system (pic by Tatenda Chitagu/ZimTracker)

In order to prevent the walls from collapsing, government, with the aid of donors, quietly set up an electronic monitoring system that checks on the movement of the dry stone walls.

The system is monitored by engineers based in Italy.

Unfortunately, baboons, who consider the high walls their playground, noticed the strange installation and pulled out the wires, dealing a fatal blow to the costly system.

ZimTracker fact-checkers saw the wires loosely dangling on the high walls. The Department of Museums and monuments is now relying on an anachronistic manual system to check the movement of the walls, until the Italian based engineers restore the system.

The Great Zimbabwe monuments is the largest dry-stone structure in sub-Saharan Africa.