The Sunday Mail
Debra Matabvu
IN March 2002, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) candidate Engineer Elias Mudzuri was elected Harare mayor, after defeating incumbent Amos Midzi of the ruling ZANU PF.
For the first time in the country’s history, Harare was being run by the opposition.
It marked the beginning of a decline in service delivery in the capital.
Two years later, Mudzuri was fired on allegations of misconduct and mismanagement of council resources, with the Government appointing a commission, led by Sekesai Makwavarara, to run the city’s affairs.
HEALTH HAZARD . . . Raw sewage continues to be a common feature in Chitungwiza as council fails to bring sanitation to communities. — Picture: Edward Zvemisha
In 2008, lawyer and business executive Muchadeyi Masunda took over the reins.
His administration was marred by million-dollar corruption scandals.
At the same time, council squabbles were rampant, as most MDC-T councillors labelled him an “outsider”, handpicked by the party leadership. Years later, Masunda would label the opposition councillors illiterate, incompetent and unfit to run the local authority.
In 2013, another business executive and MDC-T councillor, Bernard Manyenyeni, became mayor. Manyenyeni governed over deteriorating service delivery, misuse of ratepayers’ money and infighting.
And just like his predecessor, Manyenyeni labelled opposition councillors illiterate, saying they lacked the required skills for the job.
In 2018, then MDC Alliance councillor Herbert Gomba took over as Harare mayor.
Gomba’s administration was marred by reports of land scams.
He was later suspended and arrested in 2020 for illegally parcelling out land.
In September 2020, lawyer and opposition councillor Jacob Mafume took over.
Service delivery continued on a downward spiral, while he presided over a corruption-riddled local authority. The August 23 harmonised elections saw the opposition parties retaining most seats in urban local authorities.
In Harare, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) got 42 wards, while ZANU PF won three wards and based on the 30 percent women’s quota, the opposition party will get 10 women, while ZANU PF will have four.
Of the retained councillors, 17 are from the Mafume administration.
This means the incoming regime at Town House will continue brewing the same problems that have been in the making for over 20 years.
Ministry of Local Government and Public Works communication and advocacy director Mr Gabriel Masvora said services delivery standards have continued to deteriorate in most urban local authorities across the country.
“While we do not have set-down parameters to grade how local authorities have fared over the past five years, it is prudent to note that, generally, service delivery has deteriorated across most councils,” he said.
“Service delivery has deteriorated across the board, but major concerns are on waste collection and management, water and sanitation, absence of up-to-date valuation rolls, among others.”
It is likely that unless Government intervenes, the situation will further deteriorate.
Despite its quest to attain world-class status within the next two years, Harare has failed to deliver basic services such as water supply, refuse collection, city parking and roads maintenance.
Over the past five years, Harare province has witnessed two major cholera outbreaks — in 2019 and 2023 — with the former claiming over 50 lives.
Heaps of garbage have been piling up in the Central Business District (CBD), as well as in residential areas.
The CCC-run Harare municipality’s accounts department has come under fire for a shambolic billing system amid allegations that some top officials are benefiting from it.
The local authority has operated without a functional, transparent and accountable billing system since March 2019.
Harare’s new billing system has been described as inadequate and undermining revenue collection. The Auditor-General’s report for the financial year 2020 highlighted that Harare City Council should comply with section 45 of the Public Finance Management Act (Chapter 22:19), as it failed to instal financial management systems.
“The council’s cashbooks were not furnished for audit. Cash receipts and payments journals linked to the bank accounts were also not availed,” reads part of the report.
“Reconciliations of bank accounts, EcoCash accounts were not updated and proper checking and authorisation of the same was not being done. Some of the bank accounts were not in the accounting system.”
Motorists have also complained of the state of the city’s roads, despite the local authority charging exorbitant parking fees in the CDB.
Parking charges were hiked four times in six months in 2021.
In March this year, at the Performance Evaluation Results and signing ceremony for performance contracts for Cabinet ministers, Permanent Secretaries, chairpersons and chief executive officers of public entities, local authorities and State universities, President Mnangagwa said the performance of local authorities was “worrisome and a huge drawback in our march towards vision 2030.”
Government interventions
Upon realisation that the opposition-led council did not have the capacity to deliver basic services, the Government intervened.
For the past few years, the Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant has been repeatedly shut down for maintenance and repairs, but there has been no improvement in water supplies. Water distribution is around 45 percent of total houses connected to the network. Sixty percent of treated water is lost along distribution channels due to leakages and illegal connections.
Harare is pumping around 270 mega litres, against a capacity of 700 mega litres.
The Government has over the past five years stepped in to provide boreholes in residential areas such as Chitungwiza, Glen View, Budiriro and Glen Norah.
Under the presidential borehole scheme, scores of boreholes have been drilled in most parts of Harare to ease water shortages.
The past few years have also seen the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) providing millions of dollars to the local authority to purchase water chemicals.
The Government is also fast-tracking the construction of Kunzvi Dam to ensure Harare has long-term solutions to the water crisis.
Refuse collection and management
The past few years have seen inconsistent collection of refuse in the city, resulting in huge piles of garbage in the CBD and most suburbs.
According to a 2021 United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) survey titled the “Waste Wise Cities Tool”, Harare generates 762 tonnes of refuse daily. However, 27 percent of the waste is collected and 2 percent managed at controlled facilities, leaving the rest to flow into water bodies or remain on the streets.
Last month, President Mnangagwa declared refuse collection in Harare, Chitungwiza, Epworth and Ruwa a “state of disaster”.
The declaration was published in terms of the Civil Protection Act, under Statutory Instrument 140 of 2023.
For the duration of the state of disaster, the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) is conferred with powers to coordinate activities to manage waste for the four local authorities, have illegal dumps removed and have waste regularly collected from all premises.
EMA will also ensure the local authorities put in place bins on streets and public places, as well as run extensive education campaigns.
In his first quarter report, Harare mayor Councillor Mafume acknowledged that Harare was failing to collect and manage refuse.
“In the first quarter of 2023, fleet availability remained depressed with an average of 18 trucks per day, which is not ideal considering that we require 36 refuse compactors per day. The situation is gloomy,” he said.
Roads
In 2021, Government introduced the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme 2 (ERRP 2) to take over 700 kilometres of road network from the opposition urban councils for maintenance.
According to the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development, Government has so far reconstructed 107,85km in Harare Metropolitan province, with a total of 33 roads selected under the programme.
Some of the major roads that have undergone rehabilitation are Chiremba Road, Willowvale Road, Lytton Road, Kambuzuma Road, Masotsha Ndlovu Avenue and Acturus Road.
Harare Residents’ Trust chairperson Mr Precious Shumba said, despite the continued deterioration, no measures have been put in place to stop the decline by the local authority.
“Service delivery issues are not a priority to the councillors or the council managers. If you noticed, there are 17 councillors who got re-elected,” he said.
“A majority of them did not prioritise citizen participation and involvement in the governance of the City of Harare.
“Individual councillors were busy parcelling out council land. They were taking turns to organise workshops after workshops outside Harare, even when service delivery was collapsing. Refuse collection is not happening across the suburbs and none of the officials are actively responding to the challenges.
“Therefore, residents expect very little difference between the current council and the one before them. It is all about
self-interest.”
