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Blessings Chidakwa Municipal Reporter
It was yet another talk show. In fact, the famous saying “much ado about nothing”, aptly sums up the State of the City Address delivered by Harare mayor Jacob Mafume on Tuesday.
And the choice of venue said it all.
A dysfunctional, now white elephant mayoral mansion in Gunhill could not have been an appropriate venue for the address, that is if it had some substance.
The nicely trimmed lawn, most probably done on the day, could not mask the emptiness of the address delivered by Councillor Mafume.
The sitting arrangement itself was utterly confusing, with guests struggling to know their seats, while others were embarrassingly being moved from one chair to the other.
Some councillors sat in the crowd, while others occupied front seats.
The glamorous arrival of Clr Mafume in a vintage Rolls-Royce did not at all correspond with his final delivery.
Those who attended the function and hordes of residents watching live on television from home and offices could have been left disappointed as Clr Mafume’s presentation failed to proffer any solutions to the challenges facing the city.
Instead, his State of the City Address ended up being a list of problems facing the city, which the city officials were dismally failing to address, much to the chagrin of ratepayers.
In short, it was an empty speech devoid of any insight of improving the city’s status. The address summarised the failure of the CCC-led council to provide solutions to the city’s problems, clearly indicating they had resigned to their fate.
Residents were waiting to hear Clr Mafume outlining the city’s plans with regards to attending to the poor state of the roads, but instead he chose to skirt the issue, only mentioning that the road network was bad.
This is what all residents know, nothing new. What could have been new was the plan of action on roads if Clr Mafume had one.
It was not surprising he did not offer any solutions to the roads problem, the CCC councillors have dismally failed residents on that front.
This has forced Government to intervene and start rehabilitating city roads under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme 2.
In fact, all the navigable roads in the city at the moment, including the busy Seke Road, were rehabilitated under ERRP2 by the Government.
Clr Mafume’s speech turned out to be a mere usual script of complaints that centred on highlighting failures, without proffering immediate tangible solutions to the problems affecting residents. To any ordinary resident of Harare battling serious water woes, uncollected garbage, potholed roads, the address was more of adding salt to injury.
On almost every service delivery aspect, Clr Mafume was simply pointing out the city’s failures, although in some instances he tried hard to give hints on how the challenges may be solved, there was nothing solid to take home.
President Mnangagwa last Monday during the burial of Engineer Oliver Chidawu took a swipe at opposition-led councils for having run down cities and towns through deteriorating service delivery. Minister Chidawu was the youngest person to hold the office of mayor of Harare in the early years of independence, a feat he achieved with distinction at 29.
Instead of providing solutions to water problems bedevilling the city, Clr Mafume chose to confirm that the city was struggling to fulfil its mandate on that end.
“The City has experienced perpetual water shortages for more than a decade owing to the population that has overgrown the provision facilities and the deteriorating water services infrastructure,” he said.
“Our water production capacity at Morton Jaffray is 470 mega litres per day, but over the past months, our production has been depressed, averaging 295 mega litres per day.”
What are you doing to solve this untenable water situation, Clr Mafume? The answer could not be obtained from his address. It is clear that the CCC-led council has failed to maintain basic water meters, with treated water being lost daily at the expense of citizens that are footing the bill for water treatment chemicals, and Clr Mafume confirmed this fact in his address.
“Unfortunately, not all the water produced is accounted for as 60 percent is lost as non-revenue water,” he said.
“Out of the 60 percent non-revenue water, a worrisome 40 percent is commercial losses, that is theft, faulty meters and stuck water meters and the remaining 20 percent is loss due to water leakages.”
Clr Mafume also avoided talking about the 15 refuse trucks bought by the council, but have been stuck at Beitbridge Border Post for years.
Instead he chose to complain about the council’s poor refuse collection.
“Our city is faced with huge challenges in the areas of waste collection, disposal and management,” he said.
“We are remodelling the waste management function in Harare by transforming it from traditional waste collection and disposal to Integrated Solid Waste Management.
“Your city for the past six months managed to maintain an average daily fleet of 10 compactors out of a desired 46 compactors to collect waste in the 46 Wards. We are currently collecting waste from 207 000 properties.”
Clr Mafume further said: “Our collection efficiency has been compromised due to non-availability of adequate fleet and this has seen the recurrence of illegal dumps across the city.”
This part of his speech on refuse collection clearly shows there are huge gaps that need to be addressed, but it appears nothing is being done to close these gaps. If something was being done, Clr Mafume could definitely have alerted the residents to that fact.
With residents having hoped for a solution to end congestion which has become a menace in the city, Clr Mafume chose to “mourn” about the congestion. He talked about what residents already know, that there is congestion on the city’s roads.
“Our roads are congested, especially in the morning rush hour and in the evenings,” he said.
“Though drivers’ behaviour is contributing much to traffic jams, our traffic signals have not been performing well. It took an average of 40 minutes to cross the CBD against our target of 25 minutes during peak hours. On average, 55 percent of our traffic signals are operational, but the target is to have all the installed signals functional to ease congestion and reduce accidents rates at our busy intersections.”
Come on, Mr Mayor, everyone knows the traffic lights need to be fixed. The question is: why are they being allowed not to function for such long periods?
On recreational facilities, Clr Mafume also painted a gloomy picture of the current situation.
“Of major interest to the residents is the refurbishment of City Stadia which are currently closed because of failure to meet FIFA standards,” he said.
“We are mindful of the state of various council sporting facilities such as our swimming pools, tennis courts, City Sports Centre and open playgrounds which used to be the centre of attraction for our young boys and girls.
“We will continue to unlock funds so that we restore these facilities to their desired state and remove our youths from the streets and the vagaries of substance and drug abuse.”
Residents could have expected an elaborate action of plan, instead of generalising on this long standing problem facing the city, whereby recreational facilities have become almost extinct.
Instead of giving residents solutions, Clr Mafume joined the residents in lamenting the state of emergency services in the city.
This comes as the local authority is politicking by resisting Government’s intervention to negotiate a Belarus deal of bringing fire trucks to Harare and other municipalities.
“Though our response to emergencies in the greater Harare is within standards of 7 minutes per 10 kilometres radius, we continue to mourn the state of our emergency services equipment which have deteriorated over the years,” he said.
“We are currently operating with an average of six fire tenders out of an ideal total of 25 and four ambulances out required 32.”
Instead of “continue to mourn” on the state of emergencies, it could have been better if Clr Mafume had provided a clear solution to the problem.
Harare City Council is in a serious leadership crisis, whereby the majority of senior officials are in an acting capacity, including the town clerk, directors of Works, Water, Housing and Community Services, Finance, Human Capital and the Chamber Secretary.
Clr Mafume is actually leading a council that is making residents foot salaries for suspended substantive officials who are on full salaries and benefits, while those in an acting capacity are being paid almost similar perks.
Online Reporter