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Mabvuku residents vow to compel City Council to respect senior citizens
Harare Residents Trust (HRT)
February 04, 2010

At least 2 000 residents of Mabvuku, Tafara, Chizhanje and Harare East on Wednesday gathered for a residents' rally at Area D Community Hall to plan and strategise on ways to mitigate against the impact of high rentals and rates to senior citizens. In an unprecedented vote of confidence in the Mabvuku Residents' Trust, an affiliate of the Harare Residents' Trust (HRT), the residents raised concerns on the widespread shortages of water and the unjustified high water bills, huge electricity bills, ownership house rentals, cemetery charges to senior citizens, and the collapse in general service provision.

In his solidarity message at the residents' rally, Mr Misha Misha, Chairperson of the Harare East Residents' Trust, said council employees, elected councillors and other elected representatives have to move away from the bossy approach where they demean the elderly citizens. "Unaccountable leaders have to answer all the questions we have and must attend to the citizens' concerns without fail," Misha said. "We have heard about the plight of senior citizens. Some community leaders once received some materials like cement for the community but sold it and earned money for themselves, demonstrating their self-centred behaviour. We must unite to expose corruption."

Speaker after speaker at the rally castigated the City of Harare and the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) for their failure to respect consumers. Residents have continued to receive high fixed water charges and inconsistent billing for water yet they have not received a drop of water in a long time. No service - no money!

ZESA came under fire for allegedly sending high bills to residents, there are numerous power outages without due notice to consumers. Residents of ward 20 have gone for one year without electricity and no explanation has been forthcoming from ZESA on the reasons for its failure to supply them with power. On the other hand residents in the adjacent Ward 21 have received bills averaging US$200 one month after ZESA installed a transformer, shocking residents in the process.

The majority of the senior citizens, aged around 70 years, have lived in Tafara and Mabvuku since 1971 but they still have to pay high rentals to the City of Harare. Internationally, citizens above 60 years pay subsidised rates and rentals for services rendered.

A Tafara resident, Sekuru Joe, born 1919, and still going strong, said: "There was a time I worked for this country but no one seems to care about our past contribution. Why should the City of Harare continue to charge us for grave space at the local cemetery when we have paid high rentals and rates for the rest of our lives? We need to be honoured and respected otherwise we will have serious problems. We must be buried free of charge."

The residents said they needed to be educated on their rights so that they are able to defend them and expose the violations by anyone. For example they are confused on how to claim their pensions following dollarisation of the economy. They no longer receive their pensions, yet contributed money until their retirement.

The Mabvuku residents leadership led by Andrew Mutambu (+263 733 717 820) will document these issues and make substantive presentations to the Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda, the parliamentary portfolio committee on Local Government and the corporate sector for their intervention.

To become a member of the Mabvuku Residents' Trust, a resident pays an annual subscription of US$0, 50 and a joining fee of US$0, 50 which go towards capacity building, information productions and general administration of the residents' movement in Mabvuku.

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