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How to kill a capital city . . . while Chombo/Makwavarara party on
Bornwell Chakaodza
June 22, 2006

http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=1371

ONCE upon a time, they used to call Harare the sunshine city but today all that has changed, thanks to the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development, Ignatius Chombo who has done virtually everything conceivable to ruin this yester year beautiful city.

Last Friday, the government through the Minister of Local Government reappointed for the fourth consecutive time the semi-literate Sekesayi Makwavarara and four members of the illegal and unaccountable commission running the capital city for a further six months.

This was done against all the expectations and objections of the long-suffering Harare residents and ratepayers.

To say that Harare residents were left open-mouthed by this reappointment will be an understatement. They truly could not believe it. This was yet another example of the attitude that government could not care less what people think and want.

In re-appointing these self-serving commissioners, Chombo unashamedly said that government was pleased with the work being done by the commission, adding that the establishment of business units and utility agencies has enhanced the city's revenue base.

"I observe and hear with extreme pleasure that, to date, this strategy has paid dividends in the increased visibility of the city in areas such as road maintenance, street and traffic lights management, improved refuse collection capacity as the plant and equipment is slowly but surely being brought back on the city's roads," Chombo opined.

Democratic unaccountability of this Makwavarara woman and her commissioners aside, what Chombo said is simply not true.

No sane Harare resident will swallow that piece of insulting nonsense from you Chombo. Patching roads and filling portholes here and there does not amount to improved service delivery.

Harare has become a run-down city and there is no hard evidence on the ground that the so-called turnaround process in the city is succeeding. Residents will continue to pour scorn on your claims Minister as long as the evidence is not there.

What the residents of Harare continue to see and experience is uncollected garbage, water cuts for days on end, poor sanitation, filthy and smelly street lanes, non-working street lights - in a phrase: terrible service delivery.

All this reflects very badly on the government, unfortunately.

It is common knowledge that the unelected commissioners do not give a damn about the Harare residents and ratepayers. Essentially, we are dealing with people who want to enjoy the privileges of power: buying houses and stands for a song.

The illiterate and completely clueless Makwavarara is a notorious case in point. I cannot imagine for the life of me why such a person should be reappointed - in fact, why was she appointed in the first place?

Of course, this woman is not alone in sin. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people in this country who are misbehaving in the same way as Makwavarara but their actions are not being scrutinised by the media and the public to the same extent.

Nevertheless, she is the public face of the City of Harare at the moment and must therefore be made accountable. By the same token, the media must shine its lamp and ferret out the corrupt thousands who are hiding in dark corners throughout the country.

The City of Harare, unlike Bulawayo and other towns, finds itself in this unlucky position for a number of reasons.

First, it is the seat of the government of Zimbabwe and the ruling party thinks it owns the city hence the unlawful dismissal of the MDC-led council in 2004. Strange and unbelievable, yes, but ZANU PF genuinely thinks that they own us Harare residents - body and soul!

Incredible as it may seem, that is what ZANU PF believes.

Second, we are stuck not only with Chombo's poodle - Makwavarara - but we are also unlucky in the sense that the Town Clerk himself, Nomutsa Chideya, is somewhat incompetent. I do not know whether he can reform himself, but the truth of the matter is that the cock-up in Harare should also be laid at his door.

Chombo, of course, is the number one culprit, but Chideya comes a close third after the clueless Makwavarara. Chideya is the number one advisor to Council so there is no way we can separate the uselessness of the City of Harare from him. This is the crux of the matter.

We can all agree, I am sure, that the best Town Clerk that post-independent Zimbabwe has ever had is the former Town Clerk of Bulawayo, Mike Ndubiwa. The man was just competent and knowledgeable and how l wish to God that all town clerks everywhere could take a leaf from Ndubiwa's book. Bulawayo was not only the best-run city in the country but even now under the able leadership of Josephat Ndabeni-Ncube continues to be so.

This tradition has its roots in the pre-independence period in the various successive Bulawayo mayors including the then far-sighted director of African administration, Hugh Ashton

People with good management skills do not make excuses like Nomutsa Chideya, the Harare Town Clerk, who recently said "Some of the problems affecting Harare should be understood from a historical perspective". He went on ". . . the City of Harare was created for whites in the colonial era and a few blacks who provided labour . . . at the moment the city has a population of three million people, while the infrastructure can take one million people or so"

Twenty six years after independence this is a crazy observation by Chideya. While his observation is true historically it does not hold water anymore. No right-thinking Zimbabwean will buy into that backward thinking at this point in time. Chideya, colonialism ended more than 20 years ago and there is no way we can continue hacking back to it time and time again.

My question to you Chideya is this: Have you heard of the phrase 'Planning for the future'? Is this not the kind of thinking which has killed our country and wrecked our health delivery system, education and almost everything else? It is failure to plan, stupid! I am sure you will dutifully inform us again, for example, that Parirenyatwa Hospital is in such a sorry state because it was built for whites in the colonial era! Get real, Nomutsa.

I must point out that it no longer suffices to continue to claim that our current problems are firmly rooted in the past. Absolutely not. Totally untrue. We are solely to blame for the crises that we find ourselves in whether it is in the Harare City Council or the country at large. Logic must not be turned on its head and neither must people be asked to believe the unbelievable like what the Minister of Local Government mouthed at his last week's press conference when he re-appointed Makwavarara and her fellow commissioners.

The minister's ruling out the holding of municipal elections in the city until Harare Metropolitan Province districts are properly defined was just another ruse and excuse to keep out the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

By way of conclusion, l want to emphasise the fact that it is a sad reflection of what we fought for when democratic accountability is being thrown out through the window the way it is happening with incredible rapidity in the City of Harare.

My heart goes out to the residents and ratepayers of this city. There is absolutely no reason why the Zimbabwe government should be seen to be at war with its own people.

So, Harare limps on. A hopeless situation? I do not know. But for now it is difficult to see what we can do to help these creatures at the top of the council in their take-off into self-sustained doom except maybe to sing:

Bon Voyage Vampires.

Email: borncha@mweb.co.zw

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