By Pretty Manyewe
Harare City Council -run by opposition party MDC Alliance – continues to give excuses for failing to provide good services to ratepayers, relying on the resources defense which has become a broken record.
Harare which was at one time befitting of the title Sunshine City, is rapidly decaying with basic amenities such as water, sewer maintenance and garbage collection becoming luxuries.
Giving his remarks at an interactive workshop between the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works and City of Harare last week, Acting Mayor Stuart Mutizwa belted excuse after excuse as he tried to absolve council of their misgivings.
He blamed persisting squabbles within the opposition rank and file.
“The uncertainty and leadership issues have affected the service delivery. Since last year there has been infighting and this has affected our ability as a city to attend to critical services.
The appalling state of the service delivery is in the public domain because as a city we have failed to provide the most basic of the services,” said Acting Mayor Mutizwa.
Despite increasing water charges for households, the city council is still producing and distributing 404 to 440 megalitres of water instead of the much needed 800 to1200 megalitres per day.
The city council has been failing to meet the demand of water due to what they term the high cost of water treatment chemicals and their failure to clear a ZWL$438 million debt they owe to several chemical suppliers.
However, despite the MDC Alliance having been running the council for over 20 years now, most pipe networks are over 60 years old and have never been replaced or upgraded causing a water loss of 25 percent each month due to leakages and regular burst pipes.
At the meeting, Acting Town clerk Engineer Mabhena Moyo presented hurdles they are facing in delivering decent service.
Moyo said they are struggling with overcrowding, policy inconsistencies, limited capacities and finances, institutional corruption, shrinking development and poor infrastructure among others but failed to propose solutions to the challenges.
Harare is lagging behind its regional peers in all aspects and part of it is a result of the endless excuses from blundering executives and clueless councillors.
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