Mt Pleasant residents take charge of service delivery

09 Jul, 2021 - 00:07 0 Views
Mt Pleasant residents take charge of service delivery Mt Pleasant legislator Samuel Banda

Suburban

Faced with extremely poor service delivery particularly failure to collect refuse and dangerous potholes littering their roads, Mt Pleasant residents are pooling resources together and carrying out street cleaning exercises, community refuse collection and assisting council to repair roads in the neighbourhood.

Peter Tanyanyiwa Suburban Reporter

As part of managing waste in the suburb, the residents have also introduced a recycling day for a minimum of twice monthly. 

The residents have also committed themselves to make roads in the suburb passable by patching the numerous potholes dotted on the roads although the resources are not sufficient to cover all the roads.

Mt Pleasant residents recently collected all the rubbish dumped in the river adjacent to Mt Pleasant Sports Club.  

In an interview with Suburban, Mt Pleasant district officer Mrs Marian Mverechena confirmed the efforts being undertaken by residents in restoring service delivery in the suburb saying they are doing a wonderful job.

“We are really proud of our residents. They are surely taking care of their community and as council we are always there to facilitate and offer what the residents may need to clean or patch their roads. We encourage other residents to work together with the local authority and help bring back Harare to its sunshine City status,” she said.

Member of the National Assembly for Mt Pleasant Mr Samuel Banda called upon central Government and the City of Harare to help the residents as they have now taken service delivery into their own hands by availing the 25 percent retention funds to the district so they manage their own services.

“We call upon Government and council to immediately ensure that 25 percent of all council fees, rates and charges paid within each district must be kept and used within that district as a first line of the devolution measures.

“This will go a long way in financing local activities thereby reducing the challenges residents continue to face on a daily basis,” he said.

Some of the residents who are taking part in the pothole patching exercise said that the damage to vehicles driving on Mt Pleasant’s potholed roads had driven them to fund road repairs on their own to save what remains of the suspension of their cars. 

Residents believe that a proper drainage system in the suburb will also make it easier to maintain the roads.  

“I want to encourage all residents from different communities to have such an initiative aimed at upgrading, maintenance and provision of services to their suburbs,” a Mt Pleasant resident Mr Allan Makoni said.

Initiatives such as this one, which are centred on residents doing it themselves, are not new to Mt Pleasant. 

In May, Mt Pleasant residents cleaned up Bargate Road which goes across the river between Garlands Rise and Mt Pleasant Sports Club in a bid to restore the Mt Pleasant vlei.

Armed with slashers, shovels and bin bags, Mrs Debbie Swales and a small team of three other residents embarked on a two-day campaign of cleaning up the vlei, slashing the long grass on both sides of the road for better visibility for motorists.  

They also cleared the soil and grass that had grown over the pedestrian/cyclists pathway as well as rubble that had been illegally dumped on the vlei. 

The volunteers collected about 80 bags of litter from the edge of Bargate Road, removed the litter which was dumped in the river, including a dead dog.   

Mrs Swales said they were horrified by the attitude of people who indiscriminately use open spaces as dumping grounds for their rubbish.

She said City of Harare was partly to blame for not having enough refuse compactors for regular collection of household waste even though it was up to every individual to have respect for their environment, health and well-being.  

“If they can afford to put fuel in their vehicle to drive out to the wetlands to dump their expensive pamper nappies and beer bottles, then they can surely afford to take their rubbish to the official dump site just two kilometres away from Pomona,” she said.  

“The abuse of our residential area and wetlands is so shocking that I have taken it upon myself to try and make this area a better place for all with my first task being the clean-up of Bargate Road. 

“The long thatching grass falling into the road along the section of Bargate, was a hazard to motorists and pedestrians alike,” said Mrs Swales.

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