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Residents of Harare receive letters of demand from City of Harare
Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA)
April 26, 2007

THE Combined Harare Residents’ Association (CHRA) is saddened by the approach of the City of Harare towards finding a lasting solution to the crisis of city governance. The Association is concerned with the continued refusal by those in charge at Town House to accept that they no longer have mandate to continue running the affairs of the city.

Reports reaching CHRA indicate that the City of Harare has been sending out letters of demand from their debt collectors, threatening to seize peoples’ properties if they do not pay up their outstanding rates within a given time.

CHRA urges all residents who have received these letters to bring them to our offices at the address given below or take them to the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) for immediate litigation.

The Association rejects the continued stay of the Commission and all its actions thereof because of the reasons given below;

• The High Court in Case Number between Nomutsa Chideya vs. City of Harare, the eight Commissioners including Sekesai Makwavarara, the Chairperson of the Commission running Harare, and the four-man probe team that recommended Chideya’s dismissal ruled that the Commission was illegal and has no mandate to act on behalf of the City of Harare.
  
• The 2007 City of Harare Budget was formulated, approved and is being implemented by the Commission declared illegal by the High Court on 2 March 2007, making its actions null, void and of no force at law.
  
• The principles of democratic governance require that elections must be held regularly. In the case of Harare and other local authorities after every four years, as enshrined in the Urban Councils’ Act (Chapter 29:15). The last election in Harare was held in March 2002 when Engineer Elias Mudzuri was elected the first Executive Mayor. The elections are now long overdue.
  
• The term of the Commission running Harare has been illegally extended by the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development, Ignatius Chiminya Morgan Chombo, in total violation of Section 80 (5) of the Urban Councils’ Act (Chapter 29:15).

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