dyton mupawaenda
Devolution, and in particular to move an ever-increasing percentage of the national capital budget to local authorities to decide spending priorities, has made a major difference to lives of many Zimbabweans.
But there have also been problems of misuse of funds, as the Auditor General’s report on local authorities for last year highlights, with money kept in the bank being the least damaging and with spending of devolution on salaries and cars being perhaps the worse.
Devolution funds are meant for locally selected capital spending, not for running costs, and any competent council in contact with its residents should already have a priority list, or can assemble one very quickly.
Generally speaking rural district councils have been the most enthusiastic users of their devolution funds and most have developed fair and transparent systems to create the list of priorities within their area, so everyone knows exactly where the next dollar is going to be spent and as soon as Treasury releases funds the planned clinic, or school building gets the builders, or the council’s roads department gets the desperately needed new piece of equipment, or whatever everyone has agreed on.
In fact, generally the average rural district council gets even more infrastructure and capital spending out of every dollar of devolution funds than the Treasury expects, since one common way of setting priorities is to look at what local communities are willing to do and have started doing.
We frequently read that a local community needs a new clinic, usually to bring health services closer to a lot of people, and has already been moulding and firing bricks, collecting foundation stone and sand, and offering a reasonable amount of free semi-skilled and unskilled labour.
So when a council decides to spend the next tranche of devolution money on the cement, windows and doors and their frames, the roof sheets, plumbing supplies and other hardware, and to hire a competent builder to oversee the construction, it knows that the community really needs the facility and is willing to take ownership, in fact has already taken ownership with their own inputs.
Many communities have gone a bit further and done some of their own fundraising from local businesses and the like, and again this impresses the rural district council as to the need that needs to be filled and getting the maximum value for the money sent by the central Government.
In most ways this is exactly what devolution funds were intended to generate.
The central Government does have its own capital spending budget, some of which must be centralised. But a lot of spending need not be, and in many cases is better organised at the local level.
People who will be using the new facility, or who need the new facility, usually have a much better idea than a Harare-based bureaucrat just what is needed and where, and know in which order to build the new facilities.
Urban authorities, who also receive devolution funds, are frequently less forthcoming about what they spend the money on and none appear to trust the local communities to make the decisions and help work out the priorities.
Many of the dubious transactions, or sometime just plain misuse of devolution funds, does come from the urban councils.
Some of that, admittedly, arises from the urban tendency of not taking much interest in community activity and limiting their involvement to the vote once every five years for a councillor, based usually on party rather than knowledge of the person, and then just complaining continuously when nothing happens.
Rural communities not only do more of their own organisation, they are also quite prepared to put a lot of pressure on their local councillor to tell them whose project is getting the latest dollop of cash, and expect answers on when their need reaches the top of list.
They will also badger the councillor to find out when the new grader is coming to fix their roads. In other words they do not take their council for granted but reckon continuous communication is essential.
President Mnangagwa’s stress on more rural development at the just-ended Zanu PF National Annual People’s Conference not only reflects his determination to leave no places behind, but must also be his acknowledgement that development funds spent there do produce results quite speedily.
Perhaps one way of getting more people to know more of what is being done would be for regular lists of how devolution funds are being spent by every local authority, with timeline and dates for both completed work and work in progress.
Even among the best users, and we need to remember that these are generally the rural district councils, this would generate some desirable competition and allow all taxpayers to see where their money is going and hopefully get the feeling that at least their tax money is helping some set of communities somewhere have a much better life.
It would also reveal what councils who remain tight-lipped are spending the money on, or even if they are spending it.
For example, Harare City Council is easily the largest local authority in terms of population and so must get a good devolution budget, even if there is a bias towards the most undeveloped areas.
But if you ask around no one seems to have any idea of where the council is spending the money and on what. There is a lost that needs to be done in Harare and resident to like to know if there is any chance ever of their needs being met.
The Treasury does have its rules, and we hope does insist on certain procedures and assurances before it releases the money, but the general public also needs to know, and would like to know how the priorities are chosen.
In other words those who have made the system work, who get things done and regard the flow of devolution funds and a critical part of their budgeting and a way to help their communities, must now be the ones who set the standards and make the running with the rest at least trying to catch up and at least explain how much they get and where it goes, without waiting for the inevitable report from the Auditor-General, which could even be that she does not know either.
Online Reporter