Online Reporter
Elliot Ziwira
Features and Supplements Editor
Some appointments fill a vacancy while others arrive at a moment when an entire system is asking difficult questions about itself.
Engineer Tafadzwa Muguti’s appointment as the new Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works belongs to the latter category.
Announced on September 11, the appointment moved Engineer Muguti from his previous position as Permanent Secretary for Presidential Affairs and Devolution into a ministry whose work is, in many ways, felt more directly by citizens than almost any other arm of Government.
He replaces Dr John Basera, who has been reassigned to the Zimbabwe Land Commission.
The appointment was made by President Mnangagwa in consultation with the Public Service Commission, in terms of Section 205(1) of the Constitution, and took effect immediately.
But beyond the administrative movement of one Permanent Secretary from one portfolio to another lies a much larger story.
Local Government is where the architecture of national development meets the everyday life of the citizen.
It is where roads become either usable or impassable; where water and sewer systems either sustain communities or expose them to public-health risks; where refuse collection becomes a measure of urban dignity; where housing plans become neighbourhoods; where public spaces are protected or surrendered; and where the question of who may trade, build or occupy land becomes tangible.
In other words, Local Government is where policy acquires a street address.
And Zimbabwe’s cities and towns are changing rapidly. Population growth, urbanisation, informal economic activity, housing demand, infrastructure pressures and the expansion of settlements are creating challenges that cannot be addressed in isolation.
Therefore, the new Permanent Secretary takes charge of a portfolio whose responsibilities extend well beyond the administration of councils.
At its heart is the difficult task of helping create local authorities capable of planning for growth, instead of just responding to its consequences.
The city as a living system
As an engineer, Permanent Secretary Muguti brings into the conversation a language that is particularly relevant to the urban question — systems. Cities are systems. A road cannot be considered separately from drainage. A residential area cannot be separated from water, sewerage, roads, schools, clinics and public transport.
A market cannot be separated from pedestrian movement, waste management, sanitation, security and access.
Likewise, housing cannot be reduced to the construction of walls and roofs. A house without roads, water, sewerage, electricity, schools, clinics and other amenities is only one part of a settlement.
This systems perspective is already reflected in the Government’s National Human Settlements Policy, which identifies access to land, security of tenure, densification, infrastructure, social amenities, urban regeneration and renewal, regularisation and settlement financing among the key areas of human-settlement development.
Hence, the challenge is not simply to build more.
It is about building better, planning earlier and ensuring that growth does not outrun the infrastructure designed to support it.
This is where Local Government assumes its true importance.
When planning fails, the consequences eventually appear as flooded roads, overloaded sewer networks, informal structures, congestion, uncollected waste, contested land and communities growing beyond the reach of municipal services.
When planning works, much of it is invisible. The road is where it should be and the market has adequate space, while the drainage system carries storm water away.
Moreover, the housing development is connected to infrastructure and the citizens’ space remains shared space.
The citizen may never think about the planning decisions behind these outcomes, because a well-functioning city has a way of making complexity appear ordinary.
The vending question
Few issues demonstrate the complexity of local governance more vividly than vending.
Across Zimbabwe’s urban centres, informal trading has become an important source of livelihood for thousands of people.
The Government has acknowledged the role of informal trading while insisting that it must operate within municipal by-laws and designated spaces.
The current debate is consequently not simply about vendors, but about space.
There are questions that easily come to mind whenever the issue of vending in the central business districts of cities and towns is raised.
Who uses the pavement?
Where should commerce take place?
How can pedestrians move safely?
How can formal businesses operate?
Where can informal traders earn a living?
What infrastructure does a modern market require?
And most importantly: how can a city organise economic activity without treating livelihood and order as mutually exclusive?
The Government’s latest intervention in Harare has sought to move the conversation beyond enforcement alone. A 60-day one-stop formalisation drive has been announced, with plans to assist informal traders into designated spaces and upgrade vending infrastructure.
The Government says 100 identified vending sites across Harare are to be serviced with facilities, including potable water, ablution blocks, lighting, shelter, waste management and storage.
That approach is significant because it recognises that a designated market is meaningful only when it works for the people expected to use it.
A market that has no adequate sanitation, lighting, storage, security or customer access may exist on paper while traders continue looking for spaces where customers actually are. Urban order, therefore, cannot be sustained through enforcement alone.
It requires planning, infrastructure, regulation, consultation and consistency.
The settlement question
The same principle applies to illegal and unplanned settlements.
Zimbabwe’s current human-settlements policy recognises regularisation and upgrading of informal settlements as part of the national response, while also stressing proper planning and infrastructure provision. The policy notes that many informal settlements lack basic services such as water, sewerage, roads, electricity and security of tenure.
The issue has become increasingly urgent. In Harare, authorities have warned against construction on undesignated land, including land reserved for public amenities, while the Government has raised concerns about the proliferation of unregulated settlements and the associated public-health implications.
More recently, the Government has framed the issue in terms of service delivery. Unplanned settlements outside approved urban planning frameworks make it more difficult and expensive to provide water, sewerage, roads, drainage and waste collection, as pointed out by Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe.
Probably, this is the most important way to understand the problem.
An illegal settlement is not just a question of whether someone has built without approval. It becomes a question of what happens when thousands of people require services in places that were never designed for them.
Eventually, the cost reaches everyone.
From reaction to anticipation
This is the larger responsibility now confronting Local Government. The idea is not merely to respond to disorder after it has emerged, but to anticipate the pressures that produce it, which means better spatial planning, stronger development control and serviced land.
Local authorities have to ensure functional markets. Wetlands and public amenities have to be protected. The development of infrastructure has to be in tandem with the growth of communities, and decisions have to be communicated clearly and implemented consistently.
The task is not small. But perhaps that is precisely why the appointment matters. Engineer Muguti arrives with experience in a portfolio that has dealt directly with devolution and provincial administration. His movement into Local Government and Public Works brings those experiences into a ministry whose success depends heavily on the relationship between national policy and local implementation.
The real measure of the new chapter will ultimately be found away from offices and official ceremonies. It will be found in the neighbourhoods; at the market where a trader earns a lawful livelihood; and on the road where a commuter travels safely.
It will also be measured in the settlement where a family knows that its home stands within a properly planned community and in the city where growth is anticipated as part of development. Local Government is where national ambition becomes visible. It is where the country’s plans acquire streets, houses, markets, roads and communities. And that is where Engineer Muguti’s mandate begins.
