Gweru mayor unfazed by suspension

Freedom Mupanedemo Midlands Correspondent
Gweru Mayor Councillor Hamutendi Kombayi yesterday said he will continue to work on improving service delivery in the Midlands capital as he was unfazed by MDC-T’s decision to suspend him from the party.
In an interview, Clr Kombayi said he was given the mandate to run the affairs of Gweru by the residents and he was geared for that.
MDC-T on Monday suspended Clr Kombayi, his deputy, Clr Artwell Matyorauta and three other  councillors pending a disciplinary hearing after they defied the party’s directive to vote Clr Charles Chikozho as Gweru mayor.

“I will not lose hope because some people in the MDC-T party have their selfish interests which have nothing to do with the will of the people.
MDC-T is a people’s party and it is supposed to respect the people’s will not individual interests. The people elected me to be Gweru mayor and my duty now is to focus on improving service delivery in the city.

I will ignore these political fights where people and other power hungry individuals are ganging up to frustrate our plans to work for the people,” he said.

Clr Kombayi said he has started implementing some of the developmental projects, which were left by the previous council.
He said the new council has since toured the city’s supply dams, Gwenoro and Amapongokwe to have an appreciation of the water challenges bedevilling the city.

“The city engineering department has since installed two more pumps one at Gwenoro and the other at the range booster. The pumps are meant to improve the pumping capacity which will see residents in Mkoba Villages 19 and 14 who have not been getting water for years start receiving water.

Test runs have been conducted and I am confident by next week, Mkoba Villages 19 and 14 residents will be getting water,” he said.
Clr Kombayi said he threw away his political jacket the day he was elected into the office of mayor and was now working for the people of Gweru.

He said after addressing the water challenges, he would look into the city council’s new housing project.
“Early this year, Gweru City Council announced that it was introducing another suburb, Mkoba Village 21. I will look into the project’s progress once we address the issue of water,” he said.