Disease outbreak exposes councils

Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
The recent outbreak of cholera exposed water and sanitation infrastructure challenges facing local authorities attributable to lack of investment in the sector for the past 20 years, Town Clerks Forum chairperson, Mr George Makunde, has said.

He made the remarks during a media briefing on the third Local Government Investment Conference (LOGIC 2018) set for Bulawayo from October 16-18.

LOGIC 2018 will be held under the theme; “Local Authorities: Ready for Investment” in line with the Government mantra “Zimbabwe is Open for Business.”

“Local authorities in Zimbabwe are ready to accept investment in water and sanitation infrastructure overhaul. The recent cholera outbreak brings to the fore the issue that investment in water and sanitation infrastructure has been very low,” said Mr Makunde.

“Over the past 20 years no meaningful investment has been made into this sector hence the focus on water and sanitation infrastructure. The key marketing point for LOGIC 2018 are the performance improvement plans that are developed as part of the Service Level Benchmarking process.”

He said the SLB was a programme developed to assess the performance of local authorities in the water, sanitation and hygiene sectors.