Harare proposes to increase wards

12 Aug, 2022 - 00:08 0 Views
Harare proposes to increase wards A map showing Harare’s population: ZIMSTAT

Suburban

THE City of Harare has proposed that the capital city’s wards should be increased from the current 46 to 53 to accommodate a number of new settlements that have emerged over the years.

Suburban Reporter 

Delivering his State of the City Address last Tuesday, Harare Mayor Councillor Jacob Mafume said the new settlements must be incorporated into the capital city. 

“Delimitation: we have proposed 53 wards for Harare because of the growth of settlements which must be incorporated into the City. We have received petitions from other residents for from Mt Pleasant Heights. 

“Smart Cities are cities which are properly planned; well regulated; promote industrial growth; well ventilated with enough breathing spaces; have modern housing; promotes high rise buildings (vertical development) and is surrounded by green corridors and localised development. This is what we aspire to achieve by the year 2025,” said Cllr Mafume.

The recently released preliminary results of the national population census show that Harare’s 46 wards have a total of 1 491 740 people. 

The figure rises to 2 427 209 for the Greater Harare Metropolitan Province including wards in Harare Rural, Chitungwiza and Epworth. 

Cllr Mafume said the major focus for this part of the year was to review the Harare Combination Master Plan (HCMP) which should be done after 15 years but is now over 25 years old. 

“This project is now being spearheaded by Central Government because it includes other local authorities around Harare. 

“However, we are reviewing the Harare Master Plan which is a vehicle through which the City of Harare will promote development and growth of the city. The review will foster order and help deal with city challenges,” said the Mayor.

He said the Harare Master Plan project is currently at 10 percent complete and they target to complete it by 2024 but funding was the major constraint. 

“The development of the Master Plan is being constrained by funding. Your City is requesting stakeholders to partner us in the development of this Master Plan. Local Development Plans: We successfully developed three Local Developments Plans and six other plans are at different stages of development. Our focus going forward is integrated planning,” said Cllr Mafume.

In June, Mt Pleasant Heights residents petitioned the City of Harare and election authorities over their disenfranchisement in terms of election boundaries after they were moved from Ward 17 in Mt Pleasant Constituency and placed under Ward 20 in Mazowe South Constituency under Mashonaland Central Province. 

The residents of the suburb are getting services from the City of Harare where they pay their rates while their voting rights are in Mazowe South. 

In the same month, Harare Metropolitan Province called for public representations on the review of ward boundaries in Harare, Chitungwiza, Epworth and Ruwa for consideration in the forthcoming delimitation. 

The province said the public input would help sort out how wards have changed since the last delimitation as new suburbs are created and people move into areas that had few residents before or move out of areas that are now mostly commercial. 

This has meant some of the wards in the local authorities have huge populations, far larger than average and some are quite small in population, at least when averages are looked at.

Constituencies are formed by combining wards together and, by law, need to have similar numbers of voters, so the number of wards forming a constituency can vary.

In a statement, Secretary for Provincial Affairs and Devolution for Harare Metropolitan Province Tafadzwa Muguti said the voter imbalances now warrant the review of boundaries to enhance local authority service delivery and make governance easier and fairer.

He said on May 24, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba gazetted ZEC’s intention to undertake the 2022 National Delimitation which involves fixing and reviewing electoral boundaries in line with provisions of the Constitution as read with sections of the Electoral Act.

“The last delimitation exercise was carried out in 2008 and, due to demographic and settlement dynamics, there have been significant changes to voter populations, which, in most cases, have resulted in imbalances in ward voter profiles across the whole Metropolitan Province.”

The Ministry of Local Government and Public Works had convened a National Inception Meeting which tasked all provinces to gather views of organisations, groups and individuals on how ward boundaries could be reviewed for consideration by ZEC in the impending national delimitation.

Pursuant to that, Mr Muguti said the provincial delimitation task team of the Provincial Development Committee is rolling out a stakeholder outreach programme in the City of Harare, Chitungwiza Municipality, Epworth Local Board and Ruwa Local Board, to hear and document ideas and suggestions on the review of ward boundaries as well as any proposal to change the number of wards in each local authority to viable and manageable levels.

Mr Muguti noted that while the committee will receive representations through meetings, stakeholders were also free to deposit written submissions at provincial offices.

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