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NewsDay

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Who is running Harare council affairs?

Opinion & Analysis
THERE comes a time when failure becomes so defined and so colossal that everyone just looks without uttering a word.

guest column:Learnmore Zuze

THERE comes a time when failure becomes so defined and so colossal that everyone just looks without uttering a word.

Things can become so awry that no one cares anymore; everyone just goes about their business in the face of stunning fiasco. This mirrors the way Harare City Council has been and continues to conduct its business. One cannot help but wonder whether there is anyone seeing to the city’s affairs.

Chaos remains the order of the day at the council. In the last few years, the council has hogged the limelight for all the wrong reasons and the worst part of it is that there seems to be no end in sight to the circus at Town House.

The entire directorate of the city council comprises technical people and not even a single qualified administrator. Engineers and medical doctors are specialists in their designated fields but they are not and cannot be town administrators.

It is for this reason that the City of Harare has hit lows such that human waste is now seen in the city centre. It is because of this poor administration that the former Sunshine City now resembles some run-down ghost town with potholes and galleys in the city’s busy roads. Even the once-famed First Street now greets passersby with a strong stench of urine as one walks by.

The down-town areas now almost resemble an extension of high-density markets slowly invading the city. Truly speaking, the city has gone to the dogs. It is apparent that there is no proper planning or forecasting; the city is on auto pilot. One shudders to think that the traffic lights are dysfunctional 99% of the times and motorists have to enter into negotiations on which car goes first at intersections.

It is even a huge indictment on city council fathers that most accidents witnessed in the city have to do with their abrogation of duty. What exactly do these handsomely paid men and women do when they get to office?

Their understanding of running the council is cruising in huge fuel guzzler vehicles and creating fictitious workshops outside the city. At the end of anything, people should be assessed based on results and not the number of meetings and workshops held.

Honestly, a look at the current council directorate exposes rot of the first order. Harare City Council hits the news for all the wrong reasons. It’s either the executive has awarded itself salaries clandestinely or they have organised some expensive trip for themselves which drains the ratepayer when the city lies in comatose.

It appears no one is running the affairs of the city. City roads are now a haven for vendors and beggars who run the risk of being hit by speeding cars.

All these areas need urgent attention, but there is simply no one to the rescue. One needs to see the craters that have formed at the Mbudzi roundabout to appreciate the dereliction of duty of the present council.

Where is the ratepayer’s money going? Who is in charge honestly? The council is no longer active even on spearheading health campaigns. A lot has been happening in the health sector and no creation of awareness by the capital city’s fathers.

The time has come for qualified administrators to be appointed to run council affairs. Even during the Robert Mugabe era there was some semblance of sanity, but today the failure is indescribable. It’s unprecedented. Give the City of Harare some few more months from today, we might as well crown it the chief growth point.

It is even puzzling that city fathers cruise through the city’s potholed roads daily and swerve their vehicles to avoid beggars on almost every busy road leading into the city, yet they go into the office to plan on increasing their salaries daily. The situation is just pathetic!

How does council justify all the weird salary increases for executives when workers have gone for months without pay? In my opinion, I think even the minister responsible is equally culpable. How does a whole minister appointed to oversee the local authority be at peace when things are in this topsy-turvy state?

Do the men and women appointed to these positions really know their mandate? This question begs an answer. The same is true of Zimbabwean politics. The definition of power or politics in Zimbabwe needs an overhaul; a complete transformation. Most people in higher positions in council are there for stands and all the trappings that come with power.

The City of Harare critically needs serious people with an administrative background to run its affairs. This is an appeal to the powers-that-be that something needs to urgently change to save Harare. The council’s officials are the worst in corruption.

To be precise, roads rehabilitation, control of vendors, traffic lights and beggars in the busy roads need urgent redress.