THERE was something weird about Harare mayor Jacob Mafume’s end-of-year message to ratepayers, which he delivered at Town House on Wednesday last week.
In his concluding remarks, the mayor bemoaned Government “interference, which chokes development” in council affairs.
“We need an executive mayor who is protected from Ministry of Local Government politics and interference for functionality and management of Town House bureaucracy,” he declared.
He, however, did not provide clear evidence of how the alleged “interference” was affecting the smooth running of the city.
His entire speech was a catalogue of Town House’s failures over the last 12 months. It included failure to provide potable water, failure to deliver on housing, failure to collect waste and failure to rehabilitate local roads.
“We continue to perform dismally in the housing sector of the city. Only 163 stands were allocated against a target of 5 000 stands,” he said.
In short, the mayor engaged in a blame game. He blamed the local authority’s incompetence, ineptitude and abdication of duty on the Government.
All the while, the city continues to decay.
Uncollected garbage and illegal dumpsites are now commonplace, most city roads continue to deteriorate and potable water remains a pipe dream for most residents.
Outbreaks of water-borne diseases have become a routine occurrence.
Council clinics are dysfunctional, so are schools and recreational parks.
Driving around the city is a nightmare. Walking along city roads at night has become risky.
Water provision
Throughout the year, the council dismally failed to provide potable water, a situation that culminated in a diarrhoea outbreak in parts of the city.
More than 1 400 cases of diarrhoea were recorded last month, mainly in the southern districts, which are known cholera hotspots.
Failure to provide clean running water, collect refuse and attend to burst sewage pipes was cited by city health officials as the major cause of the outbreak.
In the past two months, Harare has been producing about 214 megalitres (ML) of potable water at its two main treatment plants – Morton Jaffray and Prince Edward waterworks – against the capital’s daily requirement of 800ML.
Demand for water can reach up to 1 300ML if areas currently without water supply are included. Harare has an installed capacity of 704ML. However, the city’s old and poorly maintained plants often struggle to produce half that capacity.
As a result, council’s environment management committee in December resolved to ration water owing to depressed production, raising fears that the development would worsen the diarrhoea outbreak.
Throughout the year, Town House grappled with a biting shortage of water treatment chemicals, a situation that was compounded by increasing levels of pollution in Lake Chivero, Harare’s main source of raw water.
Due to the high levels of pollution, Harare uses up to nine chemicals, including powdered activated carbon, liquid aluminium sulphate (Alum), gas chlorine, hydrated lime, granular aluminium sulphate, calcium hypochlorite (HTH), sulphuric acid, ammonia and sodium silicate to treat its water.
Most residents are now largely dependent on alternative water sources such as boreholes and, in some cases, shallow wells.
The majority are now pinning their hopes on the accelerated development of Kunzvi Dam, currently being funded by Government.
There was no indication in Councillor Mafume’s speech on how the local authority plans to tackle this problem in the new year.
“We have a cocktail of measures to address this challenge and we are going to ensure that we amortise what we owe Chemplex Corporation,” said Cllr Mafume.
Waste management
On November 15, the mayor disputed the authenticity of a video posted on Twitter by our sister publication – H-Metro.
The video showed a man charging $50 to help pedestrians cross a flooded Jason Moyo Avenue after a downpour in the capital. One Twitter user challenged mayor Mafume to explain whether the ZANU PF Government should shoulder the blame for council’s failure to collect garbage and clear storm drains, which had led to flooding of the street.
“Any area where a problem arises, we sort it out,” retorted Cllr Mafume.
“The areas that had problems were sorted. We will do more these coming weeks to clear the drains and the rubbish; we promised a clean city by December.”
Yesterday was the last day of December, but mounds of uncollected rubbish continue to blight Harare’s streets in spite of the mayor’s promise of a “clean city by December”.
Throughout 2022, the city fathers failed to invest in waste compactors.
Presently, Harare only has 19 garbage compactors against a requirement of 46 to serve all its wards. Last year, the city did all it could to frustrate the multi-million-dollar Pomona waste-to-energy project, a joint initiative between Government, through the council, and the Netherlands-based company Geogenix BV.
The project, which is set to modernise Harare’s solid waste management, is divided into the following project components: landfill construction for municipal waste, where landfill cells for different types of waste like hazardous waste will be constructed; a wastewater treatment plant, where all the water drawn from the waste will be treated for recycling; a sorting and recycling plant, where waste will be sorted and recyclable material such as plastic is removed and taken to recycling companies; and the waste-to-energy plant, where waste will be burnt in a combustion chamber for electricity generation.
The project, which the Government is presently paying for, is set to create 300 direct jobs.
Despite burning the midnight oil to frustrate the deal, council could not offer an alternative to solving the city’s solid waste management problem.
“Your council agrees that waste management is at its lowest, but we are doing all we can under the prevailing circumstances,” conceded mayor Mafume.
“In line with our five-year strategic plan, we are remodelling the waste management function in Harare by transitioning from traditional waste collection and disposal to integrated solid waste management.”
Corruption
Pervasive corruption, mismanagement and poor corporate governance continued to plague the City of Harare in 2022.
Last year, all managers in the top three grades, except for health services director Dr Prosper Chonzi and director of works Engineer Phakamile Moyo, were suspended for various offences linked to corruption.
Engineer Hosiah Chisango (town clerk), Mr Stanley Ndemera, (finance director), Mr Addmore Nhekairo (housing director), Eng Zvenyika Chawatama (works director), Mr Charles Kandemiri (chamber secretary) and Dr Cainos Chingombe (human capital development manager) were hauled before the courts to face corruption charges.
Furthermore, it was recently reported that City of Harare councillors, working in cahoots with top council officials and some MDC-Alliance elements, corruptly bought council land for as little as US$60, before reselling the properties for as much as US$120 000.
The Herald last week exclusively reported that mayor Mafume and several councillors allegedly bought council land for a song in suburbs such as Budiriro, Cleveland and Aspindale.
The allegations are contained in a land allocation report prepared by Mr Godfrey Kusangaya, the acting finance director.
The report was submitted to the Finance and Development Committee by Engineer Phakamile Moyo, the acting town clerk.
In his year-end address, the mayor unsurprisingly tip-toed around the issue.
While admitting that high-level corruption continues to be a major concern, he, however, indicated that this could only be addressed through the reintroduction of an executive mayor.
“The mayor of the City of Harare, after the President, is the second most powerful measurable public service deployment,” he claimed.
“Our proposal is that Harare requires two deputy town clerks to assist in the administration of city affairs.
“The city is growing and, as such, the town clerk requires adequate support in managing the day-to-day operations, that is, planning, organising and managing the activities and operations of the assigned functions and services in the city.”
Roads and public infrastructure
Most of Harare’s public infrastructure is in an advanced state of decay.
The only roads that are navigable are the ones that were taken over by Government and spruced up through the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme.
As has become tradition, council’s solution to filling potholes is patching them up with gravel. It is not uncommon to see mounds of gravel offloaded on roadsides by council trucks all over the city.
While council planned to rehabilitate 18 roads last year, it ended up doing minor work on just five, ostensibly because of funding constraints.
While other local authorities prudently used funds disbursed by the Zimbabwe National Road Administration to maintain roads, it was not the case with Harare.
Council again routinely failed to account for disbursed funds.But mayor Mafume had an excuse for that as well.
“If we had received the money during the beginning of the year, we would have made significant progress, but the funds were not enough and were also eroded by inflation.”
Strangely, that was not the case with other local authorities countrywide.
Rufaro Stadium debacle
In November, energy company Sakunda Holdings withdrew from a partnership with council to refurbish the iconic Rufaro Stadium, citing “toxicity” from Harare City Council officials.
“Given the toxicity we have now seen in council’s attitude, and a lack of political will to implement the project on the part of council, Sakunda hereby withdraws its participation from the project. Notwithstanding, all project designs and plans will be donated to council in the public interest,” wrote Sakunda Holdings chief operations officer Mr Mberikwazvo Chitambo to Cllr Mafume.
Having failed to modernise Rufaro Stadium for years, City of Harare now claims it will make the stadium operational by this year.
Clearly, the city urgently needs to be saved. – The Sunday Mail
