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Residents stage demo against council
Community Radio Harare (CORAH)
November 08, 2012

Over 200 Harare residents on Tuesday staged a demonstration at Town House demanding that council must cancel all debts accrued before December 2012 and stop threatening to attach properties of residents who are yet to settle their debts.

'We are alarmed by council's insensitivity with regards to its issuing of summons and letters of final demands that have resulted is some residents having their property attached and sold at auction floors. This is worrying given that most of these so-called debts were accumulated using estimates and before the dollarization period when service delivery had literally collapsed. So our demonstration is against council's failure to address these concerns that we previously raised in various fora,' said Precious Shumba, leader of Harare Residents Trust who coordinated the protests.

Upon receiving the petition from residents, Harare Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Chiroto urged the protesters to be patient with council but promised he would sit down with the mayor and department heads to address the concerns. 'We are going to sit as council and deliberate on issues that you have brought to us,' said Chiroto.

Meanwhile, the HRT has accused some councilors of living lavishly at the expense of service delivery. The residents lobby group singled out Glen Norah councilor Hebert Gomba who it claimed was living large. 'Where are these councillors getting this money to afford the lavish lives they are experiencing today with no meaningful investment on the ground yet the people who elected him (Gomba) into office are wallowing in abject poverty and there is poor service delivery?' questioned HRT.

But in his response, Gomba said it was wrong to assume that councilors would wallow in poverty simply because they are public officers. 'Some of us acquired our own properties long before we became councilors and it's not fair to expect us to live in poverty when we are also businesspeople in our own right,' said Gomba.

And in Chitungwiza, municipal workers on Wednesday staged a demonstration at council Head Office and blocked a 'resuscitation team' appointed by Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo to help revive the town. They said the town was tired of such committees which they claimed was siphoning resources from the municipality.

The workers also protested against council's failure to pay salaries on time and the local authority on Thursday responded by paying outstanding salaries to some of the employees. It also promised to start paying all other outstanding salaries starting from Monday.

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