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Chombo’s deceptive antics
Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe)
July 08, 2004

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/fingaz/2004/July/July8/5966.shtml

That there is no love lost between Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)-dominated Harare City Council is, for want of a better expression, now an open city secret.

The public is now aware that as a result of this, there is an acute and depressing situation in Harare and indeed other municipalities which makes prospects for a quick turnaround under the current circumstances rather grim.

The two sides, the Minister and the councillors, have been haggling over a number of key issues for some time now, mainly to gain political capital. This has resulted in a deep-seated crisis at the municipality, whose service delivery system is on the brink of collapse. Simply put, they bungle and we pay the price.

To the generality of the people, the circus (if it is worth calling that because there is nothing amusing about it) at Town House — a litmus endurance test for the long-suffering residents of the city — should be blamed largely on the government which, to all intents and purposes, is now running the municipality.

The long-drawn acrimonious wrangling had an added twist this week when the government, which we feel should avoid the temptation to be involved in the day-to-day running of the capital’s affairs, gave a thumbs down to the proposed rate hike by the City Fathers. Of course the naive who cannot see clearly in Zimbabwe’s cloudy political crystal ball will feel that the government is justified. But we disagree because there is nothing more than politics at play here.

And indeed the extremely sceptical public will not be swayed, and understandably so, by whatever the Minister advanced as the logic or reasons behind the government’s refusal to sanction these increases. The Minister claims he shot down the council’s proposals because it had not sought approval from the relevant authorities. At least that is what we were told. But there seems to be more to it than meets the eye.

As surely as the sun rises from the east and sets in the west, this will not cut it with the public, which is hoping for a new generation of public services and in whose mind the deteriorating situation in the capital should be blamed squarely on the shoulders of ruinous extensive political interference by none other than the Minister, who seems to erroneously think that his brief means political intrigue, deception and planting ruling party charlatans everywhere.

It is widely accepted that in politics, a lot is said by the unsaid and what the ostensibly altruistic-sounding Minister Chombo meant was that the government wanted to cushion the increasingly disillusioned people who have endured unprecedented deprivation in the midst of a dip into an equally unprecedented economic meltdown. Yeah, and pigs might as well fly! We would grudgingly give the Minister the benefit of the doubt if we did not know better.

However in Zimbabwe’s highly poisoned political atmosphere where everything assumes political connotations, what the Minister said will, rightly or wrongly, be seen as an old, worn-out, threadbare platitudinous political cliché. And justifiably so. Since when did the government care about the welfare of the people? Doesn’t this amount to postponing the inevitable whose cumulative shock the people might not be able to absorb due to its magnitude? Is this not just a politically convenient but unrealistic, unsustainable and shortsighted wrong-headed stance to appease a restive electorate with a view to capturing that all-elusive urban vote for the ruling ZANU PF? This is moreso given that ZANU PF’s obsession with exerting its influence in the city of Harare is underlined by the appointment of Witness Mangwende as governor to preside over an elected council — in a move widely seen as a bonfire of political madness.

Without necessarily condoning widespread corruption, management ineptitude and the inefficiency of the MDC councillors, who seem stymied by the government-ordered chaos at Town House and who many feel should have cut their losses by quitting rather than lingering in unsatisfactory circumstances, the other question to ask is: Did the government, which seems, more for political considerations, wary of sensitive upward price movements, ever consider how badly the city needs the cash to restore its fast collapsing service delivery system — a ticking health time bomb?

If the government was so concerned about the people as it wants us to believe, why then is it not equally aggressive at other public institutions which offer appalling services? A case in point is the public broadcaster, the ZBC or whatever they now call it. The broadcaster serves parochial political interests but people are forced to buy licences for something they do not want to listen to. What about the taxes we pay with very little if any accountability from the government?

These questions are bound to arise because there has been a great deal of deception from Zimbabwe’s feuding politicians. Nothing is really what it seems. Indeed the timing of the Minister’s gross error of judgment is also puzzling in that the crisis at the city council, which is increasingly finding it difficult to balance its books, was touched off after years of mismanagement and breathtaking malfeasance when council affairs were run by ZANU PF.

Why did the government sit on the fence, maintaining a wait-and-see attitude instead of acting to nip the rot in the bud?

The MDC-dominated council has never been allowed to breathe freely. It has been a target of systematic bullying by the government. This culminated in the unceremonious departure of Elias Mudzuri, who is now familiar with the ugly face of ZANU PF’s attack machine. He became a target of massive fire from the authorities. He was pilloried in the newspapers by influential ZANU PF members who demanded his resignation. Yet he had the popular mandate to run the city.

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