Suburban
The City of Harare has called for constant engagement with its ratepayers in order to deal with issues such as accountability dogging the city.
Diana Nherera Suburban Reporter
Addressing residents during a virtual council pre-budget consultative meeting for ward 41 held last Wednesday, Mr MacDonald Magedhi from the City of Harare’s finance department encouraged residents to communicate with council although there may be gaps.
“We have experienced, I think from this platform, ever since I joined, we can all agree that there is a gap between the City of Harare and residents where we need to find each other to push for the same things and also communicate regularly so that whenever there are challenges or success stories, we can all relate on the same platform.
“We are also trying to come up with a participatory framework where every resident is involved in the operations of the City of Harare as demanded earlier from this platform.
“There are issues to do with accountability, it’s a welcome observation from the residents and where there are gaps, let’s keep talking.
“There were also sentiments of boycotting and all, yes it may still be within our rights as residents to express ourselves but let me reinforce that the wood is ours as Harare residents and by giving up, we are not doing ourselves any favour.
“Let’s keep pushing each other, let’s keep pushing for accountability so that we build bridges between the city and the residents, we build rapport that allows for service delivery.
“It may not jump from being unsatisfactory to being satisfactory overnight but there is work to be done and with engagement, this work can actually be achieved and we can work step by step to reach where we want to be as council and residents,” he said.
Residents of Ward 7 boycotted the current council pre-budget consultative meeting as they believed council is not genuine in their consultations.
Mr Magedhi said the city’s thrust is trying to improve on its ICTs.
“I am glad to confirm that as of Friday, residents can now receive updates on their status in terms of debtorship with the City of Harare.
“They can now receive those via SMS with Econet. We are trying to stabilise the situation internally. As you have noticed, from 2019, we have had issues to do with currency and the exchange rate and we have seen some bit of stability lately in terms of the exchange rate but the inflation on the ground has still been more of on the rise though on a decreased rate. We are also anticipating this stability to continue.”
He said council is also working on trying to improve the status of small to medium enterprises and is also making efforts to formalise the informal sector.
“In this drive, there’s been various works, which include the construction of vendor sites at Coca Cola which may not be adequate but as we start, there is need for continuous engagement to increase the uptake of such facilities and also a drive towards rehabilitation and also maintaining order on the various marketing sites that we have including what we have in Marlborough,” said Mr Magedhi.
On roads, Mr Magedhi said the city will continue negotiating with Zinara (Zimbabwe National Road Administration) to get reasonable funding to make progress on the city’s roads.
He said the city had anticipated some donations, some which have come while others are yet to be received.
“And these donations are for the health side with this pandemic (COVID-19).
“There’s been a lot of activities which were unanticipated from our City Health department but we are glad to say we have more or less managed the situation in terms of influx of patients due to the pandemic and also the normal traffic of patients,” said Mr Magedhi.
He said there were problems with the Emergency Road Rehabiliation Programme (ERRP) but there has made progress in repairing some roads.
“In 2019 there was a time when we were manual then we quickly got on to another ERRP to salvage the situation.
“We can safely say it is work in progress but we have made progress to at least kick start all the key operations on the modules necessary.
“So we have had that challenge but we are working on improving but we are running on the ERRP,” said Mr Magedhi.
On refuse collection, Mr Magedhi said they are facing issues with collection efficiency but urged ratepayers to forge a way forward with council.
“Our collection efficiency in January was at nine percent, 10 percent in February and 44 percent in June.
“With these low collection rates, it means our debtors’ book is on the rise as we need the same money to fund operations.
“There are also some of our suppliers, some who provide services on credit and we may fail to settle these debts on time so this also affects our ability to continue providing a service to the adequate levels.
“In face of all the challenges that we may face, despite of all the frustrations we may have, we have to come together and forge a way forward,” he said.
Mr Magedhi also touched on the $1,19billion loan meant for the rehabilitation of Warren Control and Darwendale pump station.
“$1bn is for water infrastructure, specifically the rehabilitation of Warren Control, which is our main distribution point for water and also the rehabilitation of Darwendale pump station which is at Morton Jaffray Waterworks where we also use water from Darwendale and not only Chivero so the infrastructure for drawing water from Darwendale to Morton Jaffray plant is meant to be refurbished using that loan.
“That loan is coming in the form of works, it’s Government guaranteed,” he said.
The equipment has since been delivered at Warren Control.
