adminIvan Zhakata
Herald Correspondent
The Harare City Council has commended the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works for creating a national board to guide all junior councillors with the council now sorting out its own junior council policy to guide operations and activities of the city’s junior councillors.
Addressing councillors during a meeting in Harare, acting town clerk Engineer Norman Karidza said the policy will have clear guidelines on funding, elections and the numbers of junior councilors wanted in the junior council.
“We are proud to be the first local authority in the country to establish a junior council with the sole purpose of educating our students to be responsible and cognisant of the issues that affect them,” he said.
“We are proud because I am told that the trend has spread to over 92 local authorities which now have junior council structures.
“Our junior council was established on the back of a council resolution and we have decided at this point and time to formalise the operations of the junior council by having a junior council policy document that will now guide the operations of the junior council.
“We expect that after this document is done, we will have clear guidelines on funding, elections and the numbers of junior councilors among others. I know the numbers have been changing over the past few years and now I am told that there are slightly over 50 junior councillors.”
Eng Karidza said the reason behind such changes was the reason council needed a junior council policy to provide guidance on the operations of junior councilors.
“Another area that needs policy guidance is the recruitment process in which in some instances we have certain wards with no representation while other wards have one or two representatives. We also need to align the junior council operations with the senior council so that they complement each other.
“We have had challenges before where a junior councillor and senior councillor of a particular ward do not know each other aat the end of the term and this is not healthy for the city. It is my hope that this policy will meet all these criteria.”
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