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Residents will not be hoodwinked
Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA)
July 29, 2011

The residents of Harare are not amused by the remarks that were made by Tendai Savanhu on the state of service delivery in Harare (The Herald 25 July 2011). Mr. Savanhu had the audacity to blame the democratically elected Harare council for the downward spiral that has characterized social service delivery in Harare and other cities. While CHRA subscribes to the fact that service delivery has indeed collapsed during the past years; Savanhu should refresh his memory and go back to the root cause of the problems that Harare residents are facing today. It should be noted that the collapse of social service delivery, particularly in Harare, is the sole brainchild of Minister Chombo who disregarded the wishes of the electorate and single-handedly appointed a series of Commissions; one of which Savanhu was a part of.

The residents of Harare are not ignorant of the fact that it is the Makwavarara led Commission (in which Savanhu was also a Commissioner) that put Harare's service delivery system into a comma; an unfortunate situation that the present councilors have had to battle with. Since Savanhu has clearly displayed his short memory, he should be reminded that it is the residents of Harare who tirelessly advocated for the ousting of the incompetent Chanakira and Makwavarara Commissions. If anyone should be blamed for the local governance chaos in Harare and other Local Authorities, it should be Minister Chombo who turned a blind eye to residents' pleas against his Commissions (we call them his Commissions because residents had no part neither in their appointments nor operations). The honourable Minister did this in spite of the piles of uncollected refuse that continued to litter street corners and shopping centers; the virtual collapse in Council health services delivery systems as well as total neglect of public facilities such as recreational facilities and public toilets. Mr. Savanhu should ask the residents of Mabvuku, Tafara, Mandara, and Glen Lorne (just to mention a few) on the suffering they experienced while living without tap water for more than five years after Minister Chombo orchestrated the takeover of water and sewer reticulation services from City of Harare to ZINWA. He should ask the residents of Budiriro, Mabvuku, Glenview, Mbare and other high density suburbs and see if he can understand the loss of loved ones that occurred during the 2008 cholera outbreak which saw more than 3 000 lives being lost.

The mess that Minister Chombo's commissions and people like Savanhu have created in Harare will take years to correct and hopes of having the elected councilors ever doing anything tangible are fast fading away with the way Chombo is meddling in the operations of Council. Mbare is one of the overpopulated suburbs in Harare. This is in spite of the fact that Savanhu himself has acquired a number of housing stands in Harare; our honourable Minister has numerous undeveloped stands while the City staggers with a 500 000 housing waiting list; thousands of residents, who were relegated to a homeless status by the notorious Operation Murambatsvina are still living in shacks with no one to help. If Mr. Savanhu is genuine about his concern for the Harare residents; he should declare his assets, cede some of the land and houses he has so that the same residents can have homes. He should also encourage his political affiliates like Chombo and Chiyangwa to do the same. Residents feel insulted by Savanhu's praise of Minister Chombo whom he says reduced the Harare city budget and stopped Council from attaching residents' properties for outstanding bills. May it be known to all and sundry that Chombo is not a hero to residents of Harare. It is the residents who demanded for the reduction of the budget; it is the residents who challenged the legality of the city's decision to attach properties.

It defies logic to discover that someone still believes they can stand up and claim to be on the side of residents when they failed to do so for years. Residents have since stopped looking up to Minister Chombo for help. If anything, Chombo's actions on the city budget were a cheap attempt to gain political mileage but residents will not be fooled! Notwithstanding, the elected councilors have made their fare share of mistakes but at least refuse is now being collected; Mabvuku has received uninterrupted water supplies for the past two months; something that Savanhu and his fellow Commissioners failed to do during the three years they were at Town House.

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