admin
Local Government in Zimbabwe is important, since most of the essential services that people need come from their local council, and with devolution being taken seriously by the Second Republic, councils have to decide most of the capital spending for these services.
Councils have a lot to do with the road network in their area, with the Department of Roads handling the major national highways, but most of the rest being the responsibility of local government.
Councils handle the basic health services through their clinic networks, which cope with the overwhelming majority of ailments and births.
Water and sanitation are critical requirements, and are a council responsibility. While people might think these are more urban services, rural areas are developing and water systems are expanding.
Tiny business centres are growing, and we do not need sewage and garbage problems. Someone has to ensure shops, bottle stores and small industries are run by reputable business people and do not pose a danger to their customers or neighbours, and that means licensing, again a council responsibility.
Councils have the responsibility for town planning and even when they use central Government professional staff they still have to approve development and reconcile conflicting interests. And this includes small country towns and even villages as well as large cities. Increasingly they have an education role, making sure schools are built close to the children.
We need to get it right and this week Cabinet approved a pile of recommendations from the Ministry of Local Government to upgrade local government, important across the country from the biggest city, Harare, down to the most remote rural district council.
As Zimbabwe develops rapidly the local government has to be able not just to cope, but to ensure that a lot of this development is done in ways that solve problems and accelerate growth rather than create problems and stifle growth. The old ways are not necessarily the best ways.
The basic concept behind local government, and this applies to all councils, is to have an elected council that oversees a city, town or rural district council and makes the basic planning decisions, but with a professional and technical staff that does the work and makes the technical recommendations.
The permanent staff of all councils have to be qualified, and the Local Government ministry has for decades laid down minimum qualifications, at least for the upper levels of this professional staff, and has the right to approve or not approve the most senior appointments.
Councils can choose their staff, but have to employ people who can do the work. No councillors are full time and they are not paid. They get allowances, which are just supposed to cover the expenses of council work, such as transport and phone bills, but are not supposed to do much more.
The theory is that councillors are responsible members of the community who put in a few hours of work each week and each month and while not expected to have to use their own money to do this are equally not expected to be rewarded for doing it.
There are other rewards, basically looking at the place where they live after a five-year stint and seeing that it is a more pleasant place to live in because they took action instead of just complaining.
And having neighbours who appreciate what they did when they went in to bat for their community.
Councillors do not need to be technical experts, because so much of what they look after is so obvious. You do not have to be a road engineer to know if a road is good, usable, bad or needs an army half-track to negotiate.
You do not have to be a sanitation engineer to know if sewage disappears or flows over the ground. You do not have to be a water engineer, just be able to open a tap, to know if water is there. Anyone can see if garbage bags line the streets for weeks or vanish regularly.
An active councillor can tell early if some settlement is planned or is a scam by a land baron and does not need a degree in town planning. They can tell if a business is well run or if some chancer has set up an illegal bar and bordello. But you do need some business sense to be able to read a balance sheet and an income and expenditure statement, even if you are not able to draw these up.
You need an understanding of how things should be procured and how to evaluate a tender. And at least be able to understand the technical experts when they explain something, even if you have to demand they speak in non-technical language. You do not need to be an expert to know if the experts on your payroll are honest and competent: you just have to be able to look at what they do.
The idea of having basic qualifications for a councillor is a good idea. These need to be carefully drawn up, and allow for skills developed in life as well as won in school, but should exclude near illiterates and we believe exclude people who have made no mark in life.
We have seen, and Harare is a horrendous example, of councillors who have no alternative income, but their allowances which they earn by sitting in a meeting with their mouths shut and ears closed. A teddy bear would be as good a councillor as some of these, with the advantage that teddy bears do not steal or take bribes.
Councillors should be self-supporting, either with a reasonable job, or running a functional business or being a decent farmer. That, in fact, should be the main qualification, proof of earning at least a modest living and perhaps a tax clearance certificate would be as good as anything in the way of paper qualifications. It would also help to promote honesty, although rich people also steal.
Local government is becoming more complex as Zimbabwe develops and has to work. We also need people who can run councils to actually run them. Our rural district councils tend to do better than most urban councils, simply because most of their councillors had to undergo a Zanu PF primary, which at least ensures they are known to their community as someone who can do something. That keeps dishonest teddy bears out.
Many urban councillors came from the plethora of parties generated by the old MDC, and often won a nomination because they shouted loudly at a rally while wearing clothes in the right colour when they were praising a self-appointed party leader. That is not good enough, as we now know. Voters should be able to exclude them, but voters can be fickle. So qualifications would at least force nominations of people who can do the work, and preferably do it without corruption or “perks”, without diminishing democracy.
Other recommendations, like getting a grip on planning, updating master plans and local plans regularly and enforcing basic planning rules, or changing them by due process if they are something laid down by the BSA Company, are also essential.
These processes are often ignored on the grounds they cause delay. Well if done properly in advance there are no delays, and they ensure that the whole development does not have to be redone, or sits there for a century as a monument to a useless or bribed council. The concepts of local government are not complex, but they have to be applied.
Online Reporter