Online Reporter
Ngwindi Ngwindingwindi-Herald Correspondent
HARARE City Council has failed to;
- Provide water,
- Collect garbage, only Geo Pomona has the magic.
- Repair roads.
- Run beerhalls.
- Maintain infrastructure.
- Control settlements.
The city has failed dismally.
There is indeed no hope that the city fathers and mothers will ever bring back glory to the country’s biggest city. They seem to have no clue at all. So, what must be done; what should be the way forward? I shall provide my own viewpoint pertaining to these questions and more in the paragraphs ahead.
On New Year’s Eve, I drove to Glen Norah B high density suburb from High Glen complex; I took a right turn just after Glen Norah police station, past Spaceman shops, where I wanted to see a colleague near Chitubu area.
Insult to engineers
Ladies and gentlemen, what the hell! What was I driving upon? To call it a road will be the worst insult to the civil engineers who laid the foundation of the road at its first construction. Anyway, I shall just call it a road just for the sake of my writing progress.
That road provides motor mechanics something to smile about as it is a huge opportunity to keep repairing broken car suspension again and again, thereby making more dollars for themselves. One man’s meat is another man’s poison; I believe the guys celebrate when they see things like this.
That is a road leading to my intended destination, kwaFatso at Glen Norah B, past hordes of residents queuing up for scarce water from several community boreholes, some which were drilled by development partners. It is indeed a pity fellow citizen. A real mess.
I felt demeaning the pits which I drove past by calling them potholes; they are not potholes anymore; they have gone deeper than that.
Millions of motorists are paying for motor vehicle licences which I believe a portion of that money goes to the city council for road construction and rehabilitation.
What are they spending the money on? They have the answers.
Finally, I am now at kwaFatso where I needed to find a lady who once roasted for me some delicious chicken which I had never tasted before; I found her, she repeated the recipe; it was good.
As I enjoyed my meal in front of some building which had a billboard inscribed City Library. Yes, it is a library in the middle of multitudes of bars and bottle stores which play a concoction of music in addition to revellers’ cars parked all over the place, also playing different kinds of music.
Sorry state
As if that was not enough, the library itself is in a sorry state; dilapidated from the perimeter wall to the building itself. I once wrote about this library before.
A few years ago, I walked into the library intending to understand what really transacted inside that ramshackle building standing next to a bottle store.
The inside was so filthy, with dusty floors and very old and tattered books. The perimeter wall was broken and provided a sanctuary for ladies of the night. I saw used condoms in the grassy premises to prove what I am saying. It was so disgusting.
So, I suggested back then in my article that the library be moved to a more suitable place where it will indeed be upgraded to modern standards.
Five years down the line, it is still stubbornly competing with bottle stores. I will not be surprised that some readers succumbed to the temptations of the place; for girls, they now lie to their parents that they will be going to the library while indeed they will be going for the entertainment or going to meet up with the big boys of pleasure at kwaFatso.
My business at kwaFatso was done, it was now time to move. I made a stopover at a once-flourishing recreational garden in the high-density suburb of Glen Norah. I took a stroll in what has since become a jungle. I wished I had brought with me my hunter dog from the village in case I stumbled upon a hare or buck inside the bushy park.
Those who grew up or visited Glen Norah back in the day, will share what the park used to be against what it has become today. My fear right now is that the park might soon be sub-divided into some two-hundred square metre housing stands by people who are already eyeing that kind of money in the city council.
Indications are already in sight as we have witnessed the sprouting of church establishments in the park. It simply means that those church owners have already been sold those stands in the park.
Restoration measures
One project, the Restoration Agenda, has several suggestions regarding restoration measures to some of these areas. A chance must be given to ordinary citizens to express their views on matters of community development.
We have many citizens who have great ideas, but have no power. For the sake of smart communities, I suggest that those who have power must work with those who have ideas; a fusion of this kind will definitely bear positive results.
I personally commend the move which was taken to let Geo Pomona Waste Management collect garbage in our communities. I do not see garbage heaps by roadsides anymore. Residents now feel the relief because they can have all the waste collected by their doorstep. Imagine the guilty conscience of dumping waste at undesignated areas, at night for that matter.
It was indeed a huge burden on the shoulders of innocent residents, but they had no choice. It has since become a thing of the past as the situation stands right now.
The Government must intervene now to correct the situation which has already gone out of hand.
Flash floods
As I write in this rainy season, many households mostly in new settlements are struggling with flash floods. This is a result of corruption and poor town planning. Harare should have suspended or halted allocation of residential stands long back, but because the city is full of greedy officials, they randomly parcelled out land in exchange for large amounts of green backs.
This lack of careful consideration has resulted in disorganised occupation of wetlands in most of Harare’s suburbs. Because of overpopulation, the city can no longer afford to provide essential services such as water. In some areas where they are still fortunate to get water dripping from the tape, it is not drinkable; it is dirty, then one wonders what logic or formula of thinking the city fathers use to run the city.
Harare city council has district offices which are supposed to run affairs in their designated areas of jurisdiction. Why and how they failed to run such ventures as beerhalls, I wonder.
They have instead made a resolution to lease out the beerhalls to private citizens deviating from the original idea of those facilities.
Paltry rental fees
Surely, each district office could run the beerhalls with ease and remit proceeds to the city treasury instead of collecting paltry rental fees. It exposes blatant laziness on the part of officials because I do not see anything there that is difficult to tackle.
For today, I have touched just a fraction of the areas where the Government must intervene as a matter of urgency. There are many other areas which I shall expose in due course.
Cde Charles Tawengwa, here is a job for your esteemed office. We call upon the Ministry of State for Harare Provincial Affairs and Devolution and the parent Ministry of Local Government to take charge.
Please consider citizens’ ideas as we are the grassroots; we have a better understanding of what we need in our communities. I personally find this as a workable move rather than continuing with persistent failure.
Ngwindi Ngwindingwindi is a social commentator and community development advocate based in Harare.
