Back to Index

Harare - Sunshine City emeritus
Clyde Chakupeta
January 04, 2008

Whenever I look at very old pictures of what Harare looked like immediately after independence, the image that registers is a city of sprawling Jacaranda tree-lined avenues, clean and welcoming. It was a city of good roads, bright street lights, clean water running down the taps, a venerable health system, and social amenities catering for all age groups. Harare once was the Sunshine City, a reputation that was not only due to the sunny climate, but how orderly and developed it was. It was a city that many, locals and visitors alike dreamt of settling permanently in. It was exuberating with goodness and security. All this began to deteriorate some ten years or so after independence.

We had inherited a beautiful city, be it from Smith or from the colonial days, but we have run it down. We have stopped the sweeping of the streets, garbage collection has long since ceased for the city and the residential suburbs. The city council clinics, ambulance service, fire tenders, social centers and social amenities, even Rufaro Marketing have all been relegated to the pages of history.
The state that the city is presently is not the product of twenty seven years of good governance, but serious mismanagement by our city fathers (and mothers).

Running water is a bygone for the residents of Mabvuku and Tafara. Tap water system in all high density and low density suburbs was incontestably safe, but now the infrastructure at Norton Jaffray Water works is crumbling and crushing. Residents of Zimbabwe's capital have been forced to use river water or wells, because of ongoing breaks in the purified water supply, raising concern over possible outbreaks of waterborne diseases. Over 400 cases of diarrhoea were reported just this last December in Tafara and Mabvuku suburbs, with the number of deaths suppressed. Rather we are told there might have been some deaths "linked to this outbreak". Water cuts were initially experienced mainly in the high-density suburbs of the city, but recently the plushy Glen Lorne, Borrowdale, Mt. Pleasant, Emerald Hill and Graystone Park, have also been without piped water, and the municipality has introduced 24-hour water cuts in some suburbs.

Street lights in the city and the famous "tower lights" in high density suburbs are all but historical facades reminiscent of the good old days. The health system was dependable, with the health centers fully operational in places like Mabvuku, Hatfield, Highfield, Mbare etcetera. Harare used to run council clinics, (remember the days of Dr Lovemore Mbengeranwa),

Rufaro Marketing and other social centers, recreational parks like Greenwood, Cleverland, have been turned into "white elephants". The Harare Gardens itself has been turned into a urinary with some corners made into 'bedrooms- both for relaxation and prostitution. Harare social services, including ambulances, fire tenders, garbage collection trucks, used to provide an efficient service to the residents, but now we have at any given time insufficient city ambulances and fire tenders to serve greater Harare. Garbage collection is non existent for some weeks, running into months.

The City Police used to be reliable in providing not only security, but order and accountability to traders. Now they confisticate people-s wares and allocate among themselves the share of their loot. Harare roads were magnificently smooth and road markings comprehensible. We decided to change the names to suit local 'gallant- patriotic names, but with no matching infrastructural care and maintenance. Undogdeable potholes reduce the life expectancy of most vehicles, and also of road users, for many accidents occur because of large 'fish ponds- on the middle of the road. Road edges have been eroded and no one bothers to repair or to resurface them.

The bus terminus for local commuters used to be smart and efficient. Remember the Charge Office terminal for buses to Chitungwiza, Mabvuku years ago, the Market Square terminal, for Highfield, Glen Norah. Oh gracious me! Fourth Street terminal used to be clean and had the buses taking commuters to and from home in time for work and to meet their families. Now few buses, of course we cannot blame the City Council (they in turn blame NICOZIM?), but their roads have destroyed the transport industry that could have been efficient. Even Mbare bus terminus used to be smart for all rural travelers, catching a bus to Mutare, Masvingo, Nyamapanda, Bulawayo, Hwange or Chiredzi. It was organized in such a way that you could perhaps get where such buses were located. Now it is a state of pandemonium and a total confusion.

I need hasten mention that we enjoyed the pleasantries of Harare City spilling on to the first few years after independence. Yes, we had a Sunshine City close to the turn of the fist decade after independence, but as that decade was facing its horizon, one could tell there was disaster ahead. It was neither drought, nor the British, nor the Americans, nor 'sanctions-.

The trees have aged and fallen, drains haven-t been cleaned for seasons following, bus terminals have been turned into vending posts, with the roofs used as garbage points, streets corners are used as commercial sex outlets. Roads are impassable and dangerous to road users. Have you driven down the many bad roads of torture in Harare-s high density suburbs? Most are historical spots where roads used to be. Poly-clinics are depleting fast because of neglect, so are play centers.

Reversing twenty-seven years of neglect and mismanagement might take a great deal of money, but requires vision and a willingness to retain our city to her place of glory. I wonder then, were we better in the colonial days, with the social and economic stamina that propels a nation, than now, very "independent' but with no amenities to function as a nation, as a city, and indeed as families. Harare, Sunshine City Emeritus, is but a reflection of our country reduced to 'emeritus- status by the present economic and political quandary we find ourselves in.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP