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Activities update for week ending 13 May 2012
Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA)
May 15, 2012

On the weekend of 12-13 May 2012, BPRA held several consultative meetings in different parts of the city where councillors, the Mayor and Members of Parliament managed to address residents in their respective constituencies and update them on service delivery and policy issues.

Emakhandeni residents call for community run beer-halls

Emakhandeni residents expressed disappointment at the fact that the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) did not consult them before reallocating township beer gardens to private business people. Speaking at a consultative residents meeting addressed by the Mayor Clr Thaba Moyo and the ward Councillor Mr Dladla, they highlighted the fact that these beer gardens had for years been a cash cow for the council, helping to subsidise some of its services. They said they feared that in the hands of private players, the benefits of beer halls to the community would be minimal as they are now being run for commercial reasons and not recreational purposes. They argued that had council consulted them residents could have come together to run these beerhalls end ensured that there was employment for local youths and that profits benefited locals.

BEAM not benefiting the poor

Pumula North residents called on education officials to seriously audit the BEAM system for any loopholes and corruption as they felt many children benefiting from the scheme do not really fit the profile of the children are supposed to benefit from it. Contributing at a consultative residents meeting held at Pumula Hall on Saturday 12 May, residents said some members of the school development committees, teachers and headmasters were manipulating the system to have their children covered under the BEAM system and yet there were many orphans and children from poor families that were sitting at home and not benefiting from the scheme. They said there has to be an audit of the system to ensure that no one that was involved in selection of beneficiaries could manipulate it for their own benefit.

Generally, residents called on the city fathers to improve service delivery and ensure that they quickly resolved their misunderstandings with workers as residents were beginning to suffer from the altercation. They also called for the improved recruitment of staff at schools especially at primary schools where they complained that children were being taught by teachers who did not understand their first language. They said it was unfair for government to deploy teachers who could not understand the mother language of most pupils as that is the language that they can only communicate in at that stage. Parents also collectively called for government to come up with alternatives for the payment of teacher incentives as this was affecting parent, teacher and student relations. Parents said teachers were no longer giving the same kind of attention to all pupils choosing to give more attention to those that pay incentives on time.

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