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On behalf of ratepayers and residents of the City of Harare, we have repeatedly taken the municipal authorities to task for various blunders which have resulted in severely shoddy service delivery.
We are, therefore, happy for once to applaud initiatives being made at Town House which seem to indicate that at long last, someone has decided to do the right thing.
For once in a long time decisions meant to benefit long suffering residents instead of enriching a few people in council are being made. The first positive announcement is the retention scheme in which council wards will be allowed to keep a percentage of revenue collected for rates for local use.
This is a great initiative which should result in discernible upgrades in each area of the city as facilities are maintained, upgraded or introduced.
However, we feel that 10 percent is too little to make an impact. The lion’s share of the rates should go back to the residents instead of salaries as is reportedly the case. There is also need for strict monitoring and transparency to ensure that the money retained by wards does not end up going the same way that several Constituency Development Fund disbursements went; into bottomless black holes from which the communities got absolutely no benefit. It is not a secret that corruption and the looting of public funds seem to have become a national pastime in some quarters.
It is, however, up to residents to take up the empowerment that comes from control of these funds.
To do this, ratepayers need to become active in their area’s civic matters. Attending meetings, becoming involved, being informed about administrative structures and engaging constantly as well as knowing and utilising the channels for queries and complaints are just a few of the ways in which ordinary residents can become the gatekeepers of their funds.
The second positive idea is the decision to cancel water debts for residents in areas where water has not been provided over the past years. This is not a magnanimous gesture on the part of the authority, but just the right thing to do. This has been too long in coming. It is unreasonable to charge someone for services not rendered just because you think they cannot challenge you.
We presume that a lawsuit from a fed-up resident in Avondale a few weeks back may have prompted that decision, but we still applaud the decision makers for getting there in the end.
On the other hand, we would like to know what will happen to the well-meaning residents who may have been settling their bills every month even if it was grudgingly. We would not like to think that they will be prejudiced for being civic minded.
The third development to have Zinara come in to mend urban roads may not have come about as a municipal initiative, but we welcome it nonetheless. We suggested this idea in a previous instalment. We are confident that with Zinara’s track records, the capital’s roads will be in a better state by Christmas time as promised.
The proposed changes are a good beginning towards making Harare the Sunshine City it once was. We look forward to more such progressive ideas. Hopefully the next announcement will be to inform the public of realistic measures to cut the excessive municipal wage bill.
Meanwhile, the municipality appears to be playing hide and seek with street vendors who have camped on shop-fronts to accost pedestrians going about their business.
What happened to that tentative move to regularise their operations?
Online Reporter