adminInnocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Harare Mayor Councillor Bernard Manyenyeni yesterday bade farewell to the city, calling on residents to elect policymakers with sound credentials and capacity to change the fortunes of the capital.
Speaking at a Press conference yesterday, Cllr Manyenyeni said at least one third of councillors had to be professionals and should be backed by equally competent officials.
“I repeat my call from August 2015 that at least one third of the elected policymakers must present sound credentials to lead a big institution like Harare City Council,” he said.
“If the democratic processes and outcomes fail to deliver such councillors as a matter of priority, specialist resources must be donated or hired to successfully and forcefully defend quality decisions from council policymakers.
“This option will yield the desired results and protect the elected from perpetual attacks over capacity. Management teams are hired to deliver operational results must be competent and focused. The management team must avoid being compromised by the politics of survival and trade-offs with political figures from within and from out of council structures.”
Cllr Manyenyeni said Harare needed a performing economy and an enabling Government, which allows the city autonomy to run its affairs.
He said the city also needed clear, focused and competent officials to lead policy making.
“We must invest in renewal, largely recommending fresh faces and refreshing those who can be refreshed,” said Cllr Manyenyeni.
“Some departments are desperate for quality managers and for performance. I am happy we have some departments that are being driven and led ably.
“The employment costs have been councils’ biggest enemy and there is no political desire to fix this problem. The lack of political will stems from the original cause, the very high salaries granted by Government in 2013.”
Clr Manyenyeni said the tragedy of Zinara not funding road maintenance for the past nine years has remained largely unresolved and if the next Government does not correct this urgently, councils may have to introduce their own road levies before roads collapse.
He said there was need for council to find new models of housing development, including new offerings for affordable housing and corporate investor housing projects.
“The transaction to sell houses to sitting tenants in support of mortgage housing is empowering and it creates the liquidity to avail more houses,” said Clr Manyenyeni.
“The improvement of water supplies from under 400 mega litres when we came in to over 500 mega litres a day currently is not enough for our over stretched city.
“The cost of treating our polluted raw water cannot be sustained for much longer. The call for Kunzvi Dam and other new sources for raw water must get louder.
“Without a more assuring technology-based revenue collection method, I leave Town House with a debtor’s book of over $780 million.”
Observers say Clr Manyenyeni left a bad legacy at Town House, which saw service delivery deteriorating to alarming levels under his watch.
The city is infested with illegal vendors and illegal taxi operators who have taken over most of the streets, making the city roads impassable, while commuter omnibus operators flout rules at will.
The city has failed to provide constant water supplies to most suburbs, while refuse collection is not being done according to timetable.
Online Reporter