Peter Tanyanyiwa Suburban Reporter
The City of Harare (CoH) has undertaken to speed up the promotion of women into top management positions following allegations that the municipality was sidelining women because they generally shun corruption.
Last week, a top City of Harare official claimed that women in the municipality are sidelined from top management positions because as they are known to shun corruption and being whistle-blowers.
For some time now there have concerns at the City of Harare that women are sidelined and thought of as not capable managers.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the “boys’ club” at council, the official said there is need to complement Government efforts and implement gender equality at all levels in council.
“It is sad that with all the strides that have been made by the Government of Zimbabwe to emancipate and empower women we still find a governing arm like the City of Harare not practicing gender equality. One can only wonder why and if we are to take a closer look at the corruption and criminal abuse of office cases which have been at the courts you will see that the male officials are dominating. “This can only lead one to believe that the female officials are being sidelined because they shun corruption. We need more women to take leadership positions at council,” said the official.
In an interview, Mayor Jacob Mafume said council will create a management quota system so that they can accommodate more women in managerial positions.
Councillor Mafume hailed Government for the women councillors quota system which will enable more women to be elected as councillors.
“We are going to accelerate the promotion of women in management positions. If need be we are going to ask the Human Resources Committee to create a quota system. This system will enable that we will have a certain number of representation, at all times, of female managers.
“We are also happy that through the law we are going to have a female quota system for councillors, which will make it possible to have more female councillors heading committees and we are really excited by this development. We believe in gender equality and the law has come to our rescue,” said Cllr Mafume.
Chairperson of the Human Resources and General Purposes Committee Councillor Kudzai Kadzombe recently said she was in the process of making radical adjustments to the City of Harare’s recruitment policy so it can be in line with the country’s gender policy as women are not being given a chance.
The process of operationalising the recently adopted quota for women in local government in Zimbabwe is now in full swing, following the successful campaign for the inclusion of women in this vital sphere of governance.
Speaking at a meeting of the Women in Local Government Forum in 2021, Local Government and Public Works Minister July Moyo explained that the 30 percent seats for women in local government to be distributed among parties on a Proportional Representation (PR basis) are in addition to the existing 1958 wards in Zimbabwe.