adminProf Innocent Chirisa
Professor Claude Mararike is on record stressing the intonation of the Human Factor Approach.
He speaks of human factor engineering being a social-engineering enterprise in which innovators and users of innovations must be ready and willing to produce products because they are self-driven and motivated to do so.
We are in the age where data is ubiquitous.
The context of this is also at a time when governance is rising. The data infrastructure must also be developed so that both data and governance converge for the good of society.
There are two layers of Government – central and local.
The central Government comprises ministries, departments and agencies whose business is financed through the national budget and the human resources are commonly referred to, in Zimbabwe, as civil servants or bureaucrats.
Local Government is the machinery of Government that works at a lower level and provides services to the communities.
Decentralisation implies that services and functions can be obtained and accessed at lower levels by the people demanding them.
Local Government services include education, health, water supply, sewer management, solid waste management, public transport and housing, to name but a few.
We need most of these services daily to function well.
A principle of subsidiarity applies in the provision of these services.
With this principle, the idea is to bring services down to the communities hence local Government is that Government that is close to the people for their convenience and easy access.
Governance is a new concept that has emerged in the past 20 years or so.
To quote Fumihiko Saito is his edited book ‘Foundations for Local Governance Decentralisation in Comparative Perspective’, “Decentralisation is often considered to be an indispensable mechanism to make the State both democratic as well as developmental. Central Governments are often blamed for being too far from the realities of people.
“Thus, transferring various forms of authority and functions to sub-national units of Government for timely adaptation to locally specific conditions is considered to be an effective solution to today’s compounded problems.”
It is argued that, traditionally, the Government was the primary supplier of goods and services to the people.
For people to get the services, they would look up to this creature called Government to bring goods and services as they demanded them, in exchange of their legitimation of it to do so when they voted their candidates into office.
Hierarchy, in the form of top-down responses, defined how the goods and services were to be delivered to the people.
Although this still appears to be what is still happening, a lot has changed.
This is because the concept of governance is rich in emphasising the process approach in which the interaction between the governors (Government) and the governed (citizens) is the major point of departure.
Governance emphasises the relationship between the two – Government and citizenry. Relationships are about learning each other’s needs and requirements.
The Government-citizen relationship hinges on communicative and transactional processes where responsiveness of both parties on matters affecting them both is central.
Citizens and Government working in cooperation of matters that affect them both is the hallmark of governance.
In theory, governance is empowering to the citizens and its merits and pillars are trust, reciprocity, transparency, accountability, rule of law, participation and responsiveness, to name these few.
Trust has a gluing effect. It is said it takes time to build trust, but it is easy to break it.
Reciprocity is summarised in the Shona idiom “kandiro kanoenda kunobva kamwe”.
This is the English equivalency of “one good turn deserves another”.
Accountability is one’s aptitude and readiness to report of the decisions that they would have taken.
If one has done it wrongly, they must not be bold to report on the matter comfortably; actions must be above board.
Rules exist not to imprison us to but liberate us, especially if we have to give an account of what we have decided to do.
They become a snare against us when we bend them and reflect badly in their light. Participation is about involvement of the players that must play a role.
For one to participate, the rules and ground to allow that must be prepared and permitting. Responsiveness is the ability to provide feedback as and when it is needed.
An unresponsive system is as good as bad. A responsive system ensures efficiency, which also implies effectiveness in service delivery.
In the early years of Zimbabwe’s independence, most citizens will remember how leaking pipes would not be allowed to spend more than eight hours without being attended to.
Municipal workers would not go home before the leak was managed.
These days, sewer bursts can go for weeks, months, if not years, with no one attending to them. When I was an undergraduate and master’s student (1999-2005), I was staying in a place called Sunningale 2 in Harare.
In the buffer between Sunnindale 2 and Sunningdale 3, there was a burst pipe that leaked for those six years.
The friend I was staying with ended up establishing a vegetable garden there.
One day, at the zenith of the garden as my friend was beginning to get some money from his sweat, municipal workers came and mended the leak.
We were taken aback and just remarked, “But why now. . .after so many years?”
This was processed water, leaking into the earth for so many years! Of course that is lack of responsiveness to issues that matter.
There are so many issues that can be sorted to improve governance in local authorities in the country.
We live in the age of “Big Data”. Data are being generated every now and again.
Such data can be useful and instrumental in making the business of the local government very easy.
I know of the Development Reality Institute (DRI), through the motivations of Messrs Verengai Mabika, O’Brien Makore and Tawanda Maguze who have created a platform they call “Harare Yangu” (My Harare).
Their argument is that through that platform, at the click of a button on the computer or on your phone, you can report your experience to the city.
You can tell of a sewer burst, report uncollected garbage or a burst water pipe.
They also moderate and report news about what is happening in the city.
It is my firm belief that much can be done through digitalisation for reporting and improving service delivery in local authorities.
In a world where emphasis on the use of the Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing and related platforms are in use, one must not fizzle into misdirection and hopelessness.
Issues must be reported and the responsible authorities take the expected action in response.
But, let’s look a bit into the offices of most local authorities’ officials.
They are full of paper files. They have to deal with the dust of the files before they deal with the matters in the files.
Recently, I came across a new word – equipmentation. Whatever equipmentation means, I think it is what most council offices need.
A good number of officials are using their own gadgets, laptops included, in the name of local authority business in some clumsy position somewhat like “bring your own device” (BYOD). The local authorities should invest in equipmentation that allows the use of digital devises and they have to pitch up to the needs of the organisation.
In October 2013, I attended a Water Conference in Windhoek, Namibia. As part of the Conference package, delegates were taken to the Windhoek Goreangab Water Reclamation Plant.
The project started as far back as 1968 to cushion the dry city against its woes.
We were told that sewer water, dirty as it is, is channelled to the plant for processing until clean water is obtained from it.
After three days, what is in the toilets as wastewater is clean and purified ready for human consumption.
With the type of equipment in terms of heavy-duty computers I saw, I was convinced that indeed that must be very clean and potable.
I saw computer technologists, micro-biologists and data scientists of all sorts at work, enjoying, not only their work but also the good equipment.
A good working environment goes with good tools and equipment. Even customers and clients will be convinced that good work is being done.
Willingness to pay for a service or good is a function of one’s satisfaction that they are receiving value for their money.
Local authorities should not hesitate to acquire critical equipment that makes the business credible.
They should train their staff to use that good equipment. One hitch may be of some workers resisting use of the modern equipment.
Professor Claude Mararike is on record stressing the intonation of the Human Factor Approach.
He speaks of human factor engineering being a social-engineering enterprise in which innovators and users of innovations must be ready and willing to produce products because they are self-driven and motivated to do so.
For people to have the right human factor content, he asks a set of interrelated questions which are very critical: Are you ready? Are you willing? Do you have the capacity? Are you able? Without the right attitude, nothing may move, even though equipment, finance and infrastructure were provided.
How ready are our local authorities – urban and rural – to embrace new technologies, which, in turn, should bring dividends and confidence to the communities under their jurisdictions? Equipmentation and human factor engineering for progressive development is the way to go. Meaningful development does not come cheap. It takes investment. Both local and central government can take a leaf from this.
Prof Innocent Chirisa is University of Zimbabwe Department of Rural and Urban Planning chairperson. He wrote this article in his personal capacity for The Sunday Mail.
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