Chronicle Editor
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) was this year forced to break from tradition and held the Annual Civic Service two weeks earlier as the city’s mayor, Councillor David Coltart was set to take his three weeks leave.
Traditionally the civic service is held on a Sunday close to 4 November, the day Bulawayo was declared a city at the incumbent mayor’s church. The Annual Civic Service Celebration is a service that is directly organised and facilitated by the incumbent mayor’s church, with the assistance from council staff.
However, this year the city held the service last Sunday — 15 October — just over two weeks before it was set to be held, on 5 November. This was reportedly necessitated by the fact that the mayor is now on leave. Clr Coltart has taken leave from 20 October and will be back in office on 12 November.
The local authority’s spokesperson, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu, confirmed that the service had to be held earlier than the traditional set date because on the scheduled date, as Clr Coltart was not going to be available.
“The annual civic service is normally held on the Sunday closest to 4 November, which is usually the first Sunday of November. Unfortunately, this time around His Worship, the mayor will not be available due to other commitments. So, when we looked at the date of which the service was held, that was when he was going to be available, so that is what necessitated the change,” said Mrs Mpofu.
Mrs Mpofu also spoke on complaints from some sections of the public that they were not invited to the civic service, saying they were guided by the size of the church. The public had argued that since this was a Civic function, it had to be open to all residents so as to display a community spirit.
“I heard some complaining that they were not invited, on that, we work with the church, in terms of planning and the size of the church, considering the number of councillors we now have and each has to come with their spouse, then we have heads of department and an entourage of officers from the City of Bulawayo that are uniformed and also invited guests inclusive of the Minister of State for Provincial Affairs, Members of the National Assembly and Senators,” said Mrs Mpofu.
Bongani Ndlovu