Chronicle Editor
Darlington Musarurwa Deputy News Editor
THAT the highest office in the land, whose in-tray is almost always swamped with far more weightier issues of national interest, has to make a pronouncement to force “city fathers” to do their jobs, is an indictment of the breathtaking incompetence and inefficiency that is now part of local authorities.
It doesn’t need a divine bone-thrower to conclude that had the President not spoken out against the decay affecting Harare as the capital city, it would have been business as usual at the City of Harare. Service delivery, if at all it exists in Harare, is appalling. By-laws, it seems, have been sacrificed on the altar of self-aggrandising expediency.
Powerful councillors, often leveraging on political power, have been parcelling out land — often on land that has been reserved for strategic future development or environment considerations (wetlands) — to desperate home-seekers. And the results have been damning: On October 16, the city’s director of health services Dr Prosper Chonzi told Star FM News that malaria cases had increased in Harare, which is a traditional a non-transmission zone, due to mushrooming new settlements around the city.
Well, to put this into perspective, Harare’s weather generally discourages the breeding of malaria-causing female mosquitoes. Again, a typhoid outbreak in Mbare is the last thing that we need. Worryingly, most, if not all, criminal projects in and around the city are always disguised as noble undertakings for the common good of the community. Private schools and colleges are now sprouting in recreational community parks, vending stalls are becoming ensconced at bus termini across the city and wetlands have been overrun by new settlements.
Perhaps the most absurd project that has been introduced lately for the supposed benefit of the community is the construction of a $3 million Mbare Sunshine Bazaar Mall along Simon Mazorodze, which has caused untold suffering to nearby residents every rainy season. Although the city has been trying to explain away the link between the mall and flooding in the area, is it a coincidence that such an unfortunate occurrence has been routinely visiting residents since the first brick was laid on the mall? In any case, the wisdom of situating such a mall so close to a major highway leading into the city centre — without leaving any space for future expansion of a road that is already insufficient to accommodate a significant flow of traffic — is curious.
Harare’s problems run deeper and, over the years, they have been allowed to fester to such an extent that they are creeping into the central business district (CBD). There is nothing to distinguish the CBD from an ancient medieval market, where hucksters touting every manner of goods and trinkets has taken over the cityscape. Jaywalking is now a lifestyle and city traffic lights, which have not progressed to embrace the modern-day concept of pedestrian countdown signals, have not helped.
At night, the city is hard to navigate on account of poor lighting. All this is not difficult to correct. While Minister Miriam Chikukwa recently noted the First Street Mall needs to be spruced up, I beg to differ: First Street Mall has to be completely overhauled so that a new aesthetically refreshed mall emerges from the current ruins. It should be the pinnacle of the developmental aspirations of our civilisation. Encouragingly, the vacant post of town clerk provides the city with an opportunity to start on a new path.
Filling the vacancy affords the City of Harare the opportunity to employ a chief executive officer with a cogent plan to regenerate the city to the expectation of residents. A lot of the chaos playing out in the CBD is simply because city fathers are behind the curve.
It is the city’s inefficient transport system that has spawned the menace of pirate taxis, which are filling the gap that is ordinarily should be taken up by a well-organised and functional shuttle service that is desperately needed in the city centre. It is an inefficient and ineffective traffic control system that has spawned jaywalking and general lawlessness on roads within the city centre. Equally, it is shambolic management system that is denying the city an opportunity to raise financial resources on both domestic and international financial markets.
So, the new town clerk, who necessarily has to have a track record of sound management and discipline, especially from the private sector, should demonstrate an ability to be assertive, resolute and result-oriented. As the Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and National Housing Saviour Kasukuwere has said, a town clerk should not be encumbered by the burden of belonging to a political party, which is a positive signal that the incoming town clerk can ably implement his or her vision.
Not only that, local authorities have since been given permission to use debt collectors to collect what is owed to them by individuals and companies. A pre-paid metering system might, however, help to eliminate this need for Harare Water, which is the city’s cash cow. The same manner that Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) has been able to raise money from the domestic markets through bonds, the City of Harare can do likewise — provided it manages its cashflows well and keeps its books in order.
Transparency in managing resources will definitely endear it with investors, especially in a market where there are few investible avenues. There is clearly no reason why a city that has so many households can fail to raise money to finance its own development, or at the very least, use the numbers to borrow money in advance. There also exists an opportunity to sell the $700 million debt — which is twice the HCC’s current budget — owed by residents for a discount in order to raise funds to develop the city.
At a time when technology has taken centre stage in people’s lives, including in boardrooms, any serious management needs to adopt an information technology (IT) management system that allows for the “smart enforcement” of rules and regulations. In the 21st century, the idea of deploying truncheon-wielding officers to chase pirate taxis in and around the city is as laughable as it is impractical. Serious authorities have long switched to using surveillance systems that simply record unruly elements and use an already existing database — for example, the Central Vehicle Registry database — to mete out deterrent fines.
Not only that, such systems are increasingly being used for traffic management within CBDs, where, to some extent, they regulate parking. The possibilities are endless. It is high time we took ourselves seriously. There is no reason, for instance, why Africa Unity Square has to be so demoralisingly dark every night, only to be lit at Christmas. Again, there is no reason why the same square — that only square in the heart of the capital — cannot be beautifully manicured. It has become so bad that even wannabe music video producers do not want to be seen anyway near that decrepit and sad excuse of a park.
But then, by Thursday pirate taxis and cunning vendors were beginning to re-establish themselves, especially in the area around the Gulf Complex (Market Square). It shows what a huge task the local authority has to clean up the city. We can only hope that someday; maybe someday, we will be able to get it right as a people and as a civilisation.
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