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ZANU PF bargaining with people's lives
Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA)
November 11, 2008

The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) is disillusioned by the continuous reluctance that is being displayed by the defacto ZANU PF government in solving the water crisis in Harare, a situation that has cost residents' lives to cholera outbreaks. Residents in the city of Harare have continued to bear the brunt of ZINWA's incompetence which has resulted in the cholera scourge that has claimed lives in areas like Budiriro, Glenview, Glen Norah and Dzivarasekwa.

The cholera incidence has been rife in Budiriro (that has gone for weeks without water supplies), claiming more than twenty lives in the past two weeks. The government claims to have, through the RBZ, availed large sums of money, fuel and vehicles to ZINWA so as to alleviate the water situation but nothing has been seen on the ground and residents face the risk of an increase in the cholera incidence.

The defacto government has failed to formulate sustainable development and poverty alleviation policies which benefit the masses but have concentrated on selfish ends which have seen the September 15 Global Political Agreement implementation heavily compromised. In the traditional fashion of the arm-twisting of state institutions for partisan and self gratification, the ZANU PF Government defied all reason and went ahead with the ZINWA takeover of water and sewer management from the local authorities in 2006. The decision has resulted in untold water inadequacies and subsequent disease outbreaks and deaths from cholera and other related diseases, in the light of the collapsed health sector.

The government has continued to cry foul, citing sanctions and other limitations while skirting the obvious strategic and disastrous blunder they made when they took water and sewer management away from the local authorities. The water crisis in the city cannot be solved by the current defacto government; this government has a legacy of porous systems which will see the money disbursed by the RBZ finding its way to Fourth Street (Harare) and other illegal forex markets. The defacto government should just do the honorable thing: Return the water and sewer management to the local authorities and stop bargaining with the people's lives!

CHRA cannot brook piecemeal solutions and will continue to call for the democratization and constitutionalisation of local government which would allow the residents effective participation in local governance, semi-autonomy of local governance guard against the heavy interference of central government in local government. The Association will continue to coordinate residents' efforts in advocating and demanding accountability, transparency, professionalism and non-partisanship in local governance and quality municipal service delivery.

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