The Sunday Mail
For far too many times, the Harare City Council has been bailed out by the Government after ignominiously failing to deliver on its mandate.
Last year, nine council clinics – Southerton, Matapi, Highlands, Mt Pleasant, Borrowdale, Avondale, Braeside, Glen Norah and Highlands Family Health Services – were closed after a staff exodus owing to poor remuneration.
Some of them were opened for Covid-19 vaccinations only.
The Government had to intervene by transferring health workers’ payrolls from Chitungwiza and Harare to the Salary Service Bureau.
It helped restore critical services to communities.
This is not an isolated case.
The Government also recently took over the rehabilitation of key urban roads under the second phase of the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP) to make them trafficable, as they continued to deteriorate under the watch of inept local authorities.
Authorities have now taken over restoring street lighting in the city.
We should not forget that earlier in 2019, President Mnangagwa had to step in to ease the capital’s water woes.
It resulted in Treasury extending a US$9,3 million facility that was used to buy equipment to increase water production.
However, the President and Government’s best intentions have been tempered by gross mismanagement by a council that cannot even afford to buy water treatment chemicals.
On Friday, Vice President Chiwenga, who is also Minister of Health and Child Care, indicated that the Government was seriously looking into the possibility of hiring private companies to clean up the mess in the city and pay them using money that would have been garnished from the local authority’s accounts.
“At this point, let me direct the Ministries of Local Government and Public Works, and Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry to look at the Environment Act and other relevant instruments to determine if the Government can hire the private sector to clean up
our cities, towns, growth points and garnish the accounts of the responsible authorities,” VP Chiwenga
said.
It is a huge mess.
It gets worse with the beginning of the rainy season, as most of the uncollected garbage is likely to be swept into our sources of raw water, which means more water treatment chemicals would be needed to purify and make it potable.
One shudders to think what would have become of the capital, even though it is still in a sorry state, had the Government not moved in to provide timely and critical support.
Council would have all, but collapsed, if it hasn’t already.
But the Government is not Father Christmas; it has many competing areas of need that it has to attend to.
The last thing it needs is extra baggage coming from the Local Government.
Sadly, even in instances where the private sector has shown keenness, willingness and interest to help the city council spruce up some of its facilitates such as Rufaro Stadium, they have been more than prepared to throw spanners in the works.
They have, however, been efficient in parcelling out land for car sales, commercial and residential property development in areas clearly reserved for other uses.
Recreational parks have not been spared, as they are being sub-divided and sold to cronies.
So, the opposition-controlled urban local authorities, Harare City Council in particular, are not running our cities, but they are really running them down.
There comes a time when we should say enough is enough to all this nonsense. We cannot just stand by and watch such incompetence writ large.
The Government has exercised maximum restraint by not interfering in council affairs, but has offered a helping hand, instead. Ratepayers, however, can do something about it, especially as we approach the 2023 elections.
They need to do the needful by rejecting incompetence, mismanagement and outright corruption.
There is never a time as next year to vote wisely. Our cities cannot be left behind the journey that we have begun to create the Zimbabwe that we want and deserve.
