adminLovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
KWEKWE City Council is struggling to provide quality service to residents, partly because the local authority is operating with only 55 percent of requisite staff.
The staff shortage is a result of a recruitment freeze imposed by the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing in 2013. Ideally, council should be operating with 1,325 workers but at the moment it has 740 employees leaving a shortfall of 585 workers.
The most affected departments are administration, works and health.
Kwekwe mayor, Councillor Matenda Madzoke, confirmed the development yesterday.
He said council is struggling to carry out its mandate as a result of the staff shortage.
However, he said council was failing to sustain its salary bill even as it is understaffed.
Council employees are yet to receive their May salaries.
“We’ve a challenge at Kwekwe City Council as we’re seriously understaffed. As you know we can’t recruit after that directive from Minister [Ignatius] Chombo instructing us not to employ any personnel. However, at this point the move taken by the minister is correct because we can’t manage our salary bill.
“This state of affairs has seriously affected service delivery especially in the administration department which is the most affected. Council has serious shortage of municipal police officers which has resulted in some of the city’s by-laws being violated willy-nilly. At the same time revenue collection for parking has been affected by shortage of manpower,” he said.
The Kwekwe mayor said the situation was equally dire in the health and works departments. Clr Madzoke said challenges in the works department have resulted in council struggling to attend to sewer leakages as well as manage the city’s road network.
Contributing to debate at a full council meeting held recently, city engineer, Engineer John Mhike, said the local authority was considering mechanising some of its departments to cover up for the staff shortage.
Bongani Ndlovu