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The sad death of Engineer Oliver Chidawu, a former mayor of Harare although he later became an exceptionally successful entrepreneur building a large group of engineering-orientated businesses, is an appropriate moment to look at what in many ways was a series of the most successful city councils Harare has ever had.
And one reason why they were successful was the calibre of the successful candidates for these councils with a great deal of effort put in by Zanu PF to find a large block of suitable professionals and successful business people, with the extra people-orientated credentials, to ensure that these councils would not just manage the majority-rule revolution in the local government of the new Zimbabwe’s capital city and largest city, not just transform the council to a people-orientated body, but also take the city to new heights.
Up until independence Harare City Council had been a whites only council, and not just that, but had a majority more enthusiastic for apartheid-style policies than most councils, hence the creation of Chitungwiza.
While Bulawayo undermined the RF policy on advisory boards for the “African townships” by creating a single board and giving it real power and control over a chunk of the budget, Harare and most other councils went the window-dressing route, looking for puppets.
The upshot in early 1981, when the reforms in local government came into effect, while Bulawayo had an expandable small core of committed nationalists and professionals and business people with proper experience in local government, and even an experienced black deputy town clerk who was slated to take over very soon, Harare had to start from scratch.
So the first step was to find the right people for the part-time councillors, since this is never a full-time job with the allowances basically there to buy the petrol to come to meetings and pay the phone bills an active councillor will run up.
The actual time spent has to be given freely by those qualified for office through their non-council background and wanting to make a difference to their city.
So Harare had a rather youthful council, but with a mayor, deputy mayor, committee chairs and senior committee members who were already making their mark in the outside world, with good professional or business incomes who were ready to devote time to transforming and upgrading their city.
Dr Tizirai Gwata, already a consultant physician with a gift for achieving consensus in difficult circumstances, became the first black mayor with Simplicius Chihambakwe, already a partner in a fast rising law firm, as his deputy. And among these young professionals was one Engineer Oliver Chidawu, note the title because that was a major factor why a 26-year-old was brought in to broaden the team of professionals now running the city.
A lot has been made of the fact that Chidawu is the youngest mayor Harare has ever had in both its colonial and independence councils, succeeding Dr Gwata in 1984 when he was still just 29, although admittedly he turned 30 very soon afterwards.
But he did not just parachute into the post. He had already made his mark as an effective councillor and especially in committee work on the technical committees.
This was critical when you remember these early independence councils were involved in major infrastructure work, so having someone who could at least pin down technical experts and consultants with the right questions and understand the answers was important.
So in 1984 he was a strong candidate for mayor, especially as his business acumen that flourished so dramatically in private life later on was already apparent.
He in turn was succeeded by a string of now experienced councillors, who had the right professional or business qualifications, as Zanu PF kept nominating top-class people into council.
Admittedly, as sometimes happens, there was one dud much later on, but that was fixed quickly. But in the first decade of majority-rule councils the achievements were dramatic. Besides reorganising the administration and finding the right professionals to run that administration, these councils made the biggest increase in infrastructure the city had ever seen.
The water supply was not just increased, it was doubled. The tunnel to Manyame Dam was drilled to get the extra raw water, the Morton Jaffray waterworks were doubled in size, the pipeline to the city was duplicated and the distribution to the new suburbs was laid down. The whole antiquated, very antiquated, sewage works were totally replaced by modern technologies that won engineering prizes.
Highways and the road network were upgraded, and we need to remember that the high density suburban roads had never been much of priority before, and the services were put in place promptly for the dramatic building boom, commercial, industrial and residential, now being pushed by developers.
Harare was on a roll. Town planners sweated, and made sure residents were involved in the planning, to ensure that this dramatic upgrade was done properly and in an orderly fashion so the gains could be locked in and mistakes avoided. Buildings last a couple of centuries at least so you need to get that right.
The 21st century councils were different. They could not even maintain what they inherited, let alone expand it as the city grew. Their town planning, done by land barons and the corrupt, created multiple disasters.
Water supply halved, sewage treatment became a joke, highways fell into death traps and most suburban roads looked as though someone stole the tar.
The problem was the calibre of the new councils. Councillors were not just unqualified, except in the legal sense of being a voter, but either did not care or were actively on the make. Some very curious people were brought in to fill top administrative positions, a fair proportion of whom are now on suspension and out on bail. But the biggest problem was that no one on council cared, and even if there was an odd exception they had no vision.
When President Mnangagwa dug Chidawu out of his highly successful business career to become Minister of State for Harare Provincial Affairs and Devolution, the former hot-shot mayor must have wept when he had to examine in detail the destruction and neglect of almost everything he had personally helped build.
Yet as the President pointed out at the funeral of the national hero Chidawu, we can rebuild and we can take the city much further. We just need the sort of councils Chidawu served on and helped lead. They faced even greater challenges but rose magnificently to those challenges.
We need once again 45 competent councillors who care, have the vision and are ready for that tremendous task. Next year the voters can choose them and send the present bunch into retirement.
Online Reporter