BCC beefs up security : To recruit 289 municipal police

Bulawayo City Council (BCC) intends to employ nearly 300 municipal security personnel to beef up its staff complement as part of efforts to tackle lawlessness in the city.

The move comes at a time when the local authority is battling lawlessness characterised by dirt, chaos and decay in the city centre.

There is rampant illegal picking of passengers at undesignated points by long-distance bus crews, particularly, along Bulawayo-Harare Road, Leopold Takawira Extension opposite Centenary Park and along Bulawayo-Plumtree Road at John Love Motors.

From loading in undesignated places along certain streets in town, the operators have now literally invaded the city centre nightlife as they continue to spread to illegal pick-up and dropping-off points, mainly adjacent to fast-food outlets.

These places are increasingly being associated with more illegal activity ranging from touting, alcohol, forex trading and drug dealing, as well as vending throughout the night.

BCC this week advertised that it will be employing 289 security guards and the recruitment is expected to be completed by the end of the month. In an interview, Bulawayo Town Clerk Mr Christopher Dube said they are employing additional security guards to restore sanity in the city.

He said they were now able to recruit following significantly improved revenue collections, which increased from 40 percent to 70 percent.

“Before the introduction of ZiG, the collection and application of that money was a very difficult thing, but now with ZiG being stable we are collecting and applying that money properly and it is working,” said Mr Dube.

“We advertised that we want to recruit 289 security guards. We are recruiting these security guards because we are lacking in terms of enforcement. Areas such as 5th Avenue are still free for all and some people are now working at night.”

Mr Dube said beefing up their security personnel will help address lawlessness in the city.

“When you dismiss at 5PM people come in and start doing everything. We want to control that and we will have people who will man council offices from 5pm to 10pm every day including weekends,” he said.

“We are doing all this because of the money we are getting from residents, and we want to put it back into service delivery. The businesses have been complaining that we are not protecting them.”

Mr Dube noted that vendors operating on the pavements are not paying rents and rates yet the businesses, which are paying, are suffering due to illegal vending activities.

“So, we are trying to protect all those people. From the look of things, people might say the council is wasting money by recruiting 289 officers at one go. No, we are not wasting money, we want order in the city,” he said.

He said the recruitment exercise will be completed at the end of this month allowing for a two-week commencement of training for the officers who would start work in mid-August.

“People want to benefit from nothing and make money while paying nothing. They don’t want to create an environment that is good for business.

“Some of them are arrogant, and even when we say they should self-regulate, guard their areas jealously, clean their premises, they don’t comply while throwing litter everywhere,” said Mr Dube.

He said the Government gave local authorities the power to harness all available options for revenue collection.

“When we went for strategic planning with the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works early in the year our revenue collection was seriously subdued. We were collecting about 40 percent,” said Mr Dube.

“We were coming from an election period and so many things happen during an election and during the election period there is so much lawlessness,” said Mr Dube.

He said the council has an effective credit policy which has seen more residents paying bills.

Mr Dube said defiant residents risk losing their properties if they don’t pay bills.

“The first thing is that when you don’t pay we will write you a notice, a second demand, and a final one, and if you don’t comply, we might disconnect your water. In some cases, we hand you over to debt collectors,” he said.

“People have been complaining about the kind of push that we have been doing in terms of our credit policy to collect has paid dividends. You can see for yourself what we are trying to do in terms of services.”

Mr Dube said the situation in terms of revenue collection and service delivery was dire during the first quarter of the year. — @nqotshili