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Commission fiddles while Harare burns
Ray Matikinye/Augustine Mukaro, The Zimbabwe Independent
May 20, 2005

http://www.theindependent.co.zw/news/2005/May/Friday20/2351.html

DIRECTING strangers in the capital’s Mabvuku and Tafara working class suburbs thus: "Go past the smoldering heap of garbage, turn right when you see women and children queuing up for water from a church water-cart, skirt round three huge potholes and you won’t miss the house you are looking for," no longer seems out of the ordinary.

It has become a catch phrase for residents chagrined by commonplace heaps of uncollected garbage that dot the city’s residential areas like unsightly landmarks and acute water shortages in the suburbs. Ask any resident of the two suburbs what they hanker after most and the answer:

"Reliable water supplies" instinctively rolls out.

Ask residents of any other suburb in the capital the same question and they will tell you: "Regular garbage collection."

When President Robert Mugabe endorsed the appointment of the first unelected commission to run the affairs of the city, little did he suspect that this would expose government to ridicule.

More importantly, uncollected garbage signifies the failure of a system of political patronage that has swung back into the ruling Zanu PF party’s face.

Government fired its own appointed mayor the late Solomon Tawengwa for gross incompetence, replacing his administration with the Elijah Chanakira-led commission.

When he tasked Local Government minister Ignatious Chombo to fire an elected opposition mayor Elias Mudzuri on allegations of incompetence and for failing to reverse decades of maladministration in six short months to spite the MDC urban electorate, Mugabe thought that would endear him with the Zanu PF electorate. Instead, his miscalculation has only served to disenchant both Zanu PF and MDC supporters who could no longer put up with the daily tribulations, prompting them to take to the streets in a spontaneous protest over shoddy service.

Spontaneous two-day protests in Harare’s eastern suburbs of Tafara and Mabvuku last week included residents of all political persuasions and members of both the MDC and Zanu PF. They were an expression of frustration by residents who have suffered from a lack of service delivery for many months.

Over the past six months, the residents have been forced into a daily scramble for water and to live with reeking heaps of rubbish on their doorsteps.

Just last week, government appointed additional commissioners to bolster the commission’s performance up to next month when its tenure expires. But observers view the appointments as a serious indictment of acting mayor and commission chairperson Sekesai Makwavarara’s competence to run the city.

Mike Davies, the chairman of the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA), says: "The new commissioners taken on board are a sign of desperation by the Zanu PF regime to impose itself on residents of Harare."

Davies says his association is "convinced that any solution to Harare’s problems should be driven by residents first through being allowed to choose their own representatives".

CHRA is preparing court papers to compel the commission to set dates for both mayoral and ward elections. "We are in consultation with stakeholders on the way forward which might result in civil disobedience."

MP for Mabvuku Timothy Mabhawu said the people in his constituency were fed up with the commission’s rhetoric that something would be done to remedy residents’ problems.

"Makwavarara has betrayed the people of Mabvuku ward who elected her into office in the first place. She has betrayed Local Government minister Chombo who thrust her into a position she is dismally incapable of executing too. The ineptness of the commission is worrisome," Mabhawu says.

Davies complained that the heavy-handed response by the police to residents’ legitimate grievances was uncalled for.

CHRA says the physical assaults were brutal and intimidatory. The charges laid under Section 17(1) a of Posa against those arrested carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years and are at odds with the gravity of the alleged offences.

"For a modern city like Harare to be unable to provide essential services such as potable water and waste removal to its inhabitants is an indictment of both the political appointees currently occupying Town House and their political masters," Davies says.

He says besides the current woes, Zesa had informed residents to brace themselves for power blackouts until July following damage to a local transformer. "It is intolerable for residents to endure fetching water from contaminated streams, burning firewood for heating and cooking and using candles for lighting," he adds.

Out of frustration, CHRA is calling for the suspension of increased rates and charges; an end to the imposed commission; the restoration of a democratically elected mayor and council and dialogue between residents and municipal officials to seek a way forward. And if ever there was truth to the truism "fiddling while Rome burns", it fits well the uncaring attitude of the commission running the city’s affairs whose forte has been to allow service delivery to crumble right under its nose.  

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