daniel chigunwe
H-Metro Reporter
WITH dry water taps, heaps of uncollected garbage and burst sewer pipes contaminating water sources, Harare’s dream of becoming a world-class city by next year remains just a pipe dream.
With less than two months left until this year gives way to 2025, it is now impossible for the city fathers to achieve their dream of having world-class city status, as they had projected.
Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume admits the targets to deliver world-class city status will be missed.
He said they were now racing against time to plug the gaps for a Chamber Secretary, Finance Director as well as a Human Capital Director.
He said the absence of these key personnel affected their plans to deliver a world-class city.
“This was one of the major challenges that affected the vision and we are now looking to rectify,” said Mafume.
The global best practices rank the status of cities according to progress on key aspects such as infrastructure, health care as well as service delivery.
Residents associations in Harare say the local authority has failed to prioritise a number of areas in the capital.
“The sewer is filling up the water bodies and this has seriously affected the water sources which supply the residents,” said Combined Harare Residents Association director, Mr Reuben Akili.
“Non-working traffic lights, uncollected garbage as well as dilapidated street lighting facilities point to a deep sitting crisis within the local authority.”
Harare Residents Trust director, Mr Precious Shumba, said:
“These are simple issues which the local authority can address but they have been left to deteriorate to the current levels where they are now in a sorry state.”
Local governance experts point to a number of factors that have destroyed Harare’s vision of having a world-class city by 2025.
They point to allegations of corruption, through a shambolic billing system, the absence of a Chamber Secretary, a substantive Finance Director as well as a substantive Human Capital Director.
“There is no way the local authority can run without the Chamber Secretary and a Finance Director.
“Harare City has not had substantive people in these offices for the past few years.
“Added to this is the absence of a billing system within the local authority.
“Without a proper billing system they cannot track their revenue and there have been allegations of massive corruption as a result of the flawed billing system,” said an expert who chose not to be named.
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter