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Lawrence Moyo
HARARE mayor, Jacob Mafume has once again, conceded that the local authority has failed in its quest to be a world class city by next year and even struggling to return to the old days when a number of systems were functional.
He was a guest on the popular Star FM Current Affairs programme, Muriro on Monday.
The talk show is hosted by the station’s Head of News, Current Affairs and Digital Services, Linda Muriro every Monday between 6.40pm and 8pm.
Taking stock of and Harare’s journey to date, Mayor Mafume said Harare residents were rightfully disappointed by the state of service delivery in the capital.
“The state of service delivery, more could be done. We are not where we want to be, the residents do not feel we are where we ought to be and there is dissatisfaction all round. We are looking at a situation where there are major pain points; the key is (1) water supply (2) refuse collection, (3) state of the roads, (4) lighting and security of the people and (5) development control, in other words the mushrooming of all types of business in areas where they ought not to be.
“The people who do not drink beer are unhappy with the proliferation of beer drinkers, those that do not worship excessively are not happy with the proliferation of churches, those who believe in order are not happy are unhappy with the mushrooming of unplanned, irregular settlements. Those are the major pain points for the residents and they become a major sticking point,” said Mafume.
While many of the contributors felt that the mayor and his entire team at Harare City Council were not fit for purpose, Mafume said he is actually trouble and there are things that keep him awake at night.
“Issues around water supply. In as much as it is not adequate, we have to maintain the production levels that we are doing. We produce about 300 mega litres a day. We have to keep the plant running with electricity, with chemicals, we have to keep whatever little we are giving has to flow because there are catastrophic consequences in certain suburbs if we do not give water because people there do not have safe options.
“We are operating without an efficient ERP, which is Enterprise Resource Package, which deals with our bills. Our ERP is increasingly becoming a bone throwing exercise, people do not know the state of their bills, they cannot interpret the bills from month to month and it’s a simple matter, we need to restore our ERP, have an efficient ERP and we can lay the groundwork of investing in service delivery.
“Refuse collection is another thing that worries me. Our ability to live away from our waste is what differentiates us from other animals and therefore when we fail to do that, it is a huge indictment on
our civilisation ands when we fail to do that it causes sleepless nights.”
On the issue of water, Mafume says there is enough to see Harare through the dry season despite the El Nino-induced drought this year.
“On the issue of water, 89 percent Manyame its full, we’ve got 97 percent of water in Lake Chivero. The plan is let’s go back to basics. We have commissioned divers, to go into the tunnel that takes water from Manyame to Lake Chivero. There are four engines that were placed there originally, the city council has purchased the four pumps that will draw water to Lake Chivero.
“And those four pumps will be installed and by the end of September one of the big pumps will be in and we will gradually put in the rest of the pumps. Then we will have more water from Lake Manyame, which is cleaner than the water in Lake Chivero so we will get more water for the same amount of chemicals.
“We have worked with government to pay Chemplex, we paid US$500 000 and we are hoping, through the assistance of government, to pay them US$2,5million to get rid of our debt. Beyond that we then create an ecosystem that will allow us to get more chemicals so that we can put more water into our taps. That is the plan.”
Online Reporter