City council, ZOU join hands

Sallomy Matare and Charmaine Brown
Harare City Council (HCC) has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the Zimbabwe Open University to launch an online journal which is expected to promote research and dissemination of local government issues.

The online journal is expected to push one of HCC’s major goals of attaining a world class city status by 2025.

Speaking after the launch of the online journal and signing ceremony of the MOA, HCC Acting Mayor Councillor Kudzai Kanzombe said the partnership with ZOU would promote synergies between Government and local authorities in achieving researches and skills enhancement for better service delivery.

“The partnership we entered into with ZOU optimises the synergies between Government and local authorities in the promotion of researches, publishing, continued education and skills enhancement for improved service delivery,”

“The online journal will promote research and publication on local government issues. Local government is a critical tier of governance in Zimbabwe and the City of Harare, being at the helm of it all, needs to be at the forefront of developing service delivery strategies that are supported by functional human capital,” she said.

Cllr Kanzombe added that there was need to broaden partnership arrangements with other institutions of higher learning to incorporate other areas of research and development., such as accounting and engineering

Town Clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango added that partnership and publishing are some the routes Harare can take to attain a world class city status.

“Partnership and publishing are some of the routes we can take to reach our vision, this agreement is a milestone in our ongoing collaboration.”

Eng Chisango recently said that their first step towards attaining Vision 2025, was transforming the city council’s workforce.

“The first thing that we are looking at is transformation of employees to make sure that they are working in tandem with our goal.”

The MOA is a step towards employee transformation, Eng Chisango, said ZOU would help reform and revive city’s workforce. “ZOU has the expertise to remodel and rekindle our various expertise as City of Harare employees building of high performance teams and stakeholder participation entails that we should have employees with the right skills and right jobs, knowledge sharing as well as positive attitude towards work.”