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Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Harare City Council yesterday elected chairpersons of its standing committees, with Ward 25 Councillor Luckson Mukunguma retaining his position as finance committee chair.
Ward 18 Councillor Ian Makone and Jacob Mafume (Ward 17), who lost the mayoral race to seasoned Councillor Herbert Gomba were consoled by being elected chairpersons of the Audit and Human Resources and General Purposes Committees respectively.
Ward 41 Clr Kudzai Kadzombe will chair the Environment Management Committee, while seasoned councillor Munyaradzi Kufahakutizwi will lead the Business Committee.
Clr Anthony Shingadeya will chair the Informal Sector Committee and Clr Barnabus Ndira the Information and Publicity Committee.
The chairpersons were elected at a full council meeting yesterday.
Councils are run through a committee system and it is at the committee meetings where resolutions are made before adoption at full council meetings.
After the adoption of the resolutions by full council they are rolled down to management for implementation.
The election of committee chairpersons comes at a time when ratepayers are expecting the new council to deliver on the promises which they made during their campaign and when the city is also battling a cholera outbreak.
Clr Gomba yesterday said the chairpersons and council were looking forward to working with Government and other stakeholders to ensure that residents will get good services like portable water and refuse collection.
“We cannot work alone as council. We are an arm of Government and we believe that we should be working together. Going forward the relationship should yield results which ensure that our people receive good services,” he said.
“On the cholera pandemic we must not shift blame amongst ourselves as key players who have the mandate to give services to our people. We must make sure we remove cholera from society. What we want now is to work together with central Government to ensure that we deliver service to our people.”
“Yes we are going to be attending State functions like Independence and heroes and other functions, which the central Government is going to be holding. We have no problem with that.”
Mayor Gomba is on record saying he wants to mend relations with the parent ministry (Local Government, Public Works and National Housing) for the good of the city.
Clr Gomba feels he does not need to fight with the ministry and instead the two should work together for the common good of the city.
Online Reporter