THE Gweru Residents’ Forum (GRF) has called on the local authority to shelve its plans to spend $38 000 on curtains for town clerk Elizabeth Gwatipedza’s house and channel the money towards improving service delivery in the city.
By NQOBANI NDLOVU
Council recently resolved to splash $38 000 on curtains for Gwatipedza’s 20-roomed mansion built in the Kopje area. The house was originally built as the mayor’s official residence, but has been lying idle since 2008 following the departure of then executive mayor Sesel Zvidzai.
“The GRF is disturbed by a decision made by policymakers, together with the Gweru City Council executive, to continue spending public funds to decorate the mayoral mansion with extremely expensive curtains at the detriment of service delivery,” GRF director Charles Mazorodze said.
“Furnishing the mayoral mansion with expensive curtains for and on behalf of Gwatipedza to the tune of $38 000, while residents bear the brunt of a poor service delivery system is insane for any normal policymaker to make a resolution on and agree,” he added.
“In this regard the GRF strongly contends that the Charles Chikozho-led council has come back from their suspension sabbatical with a serious drive to spend public funds on non-core issues at the expense of service provision.
“All these activities culminated in the poor service provision potholed road network, uncollected refuse, and exorbitant bills which the majority of the residents do not have financial capacity to pay. The GRF calls for the Chikozho-led council to reorient their focus towards the improvement of the quality of services that council is provided to residents. In addition the residents call for the revision of the billing system because as it stands the residents cannot afford the exorbitant rates.”
