Suburban
In a major development expected to empower residents to tackle some of the teething service delivery issues in Harare, residents’ associations from five wards in the capital have agreed to collaborate in publicising the city-by laws among their members.
Under a consortium grouping residents’ associations from Avondale, Borrowdale, Highlands, Greendale and Mt Pleasant, members have resolved to share information on law breakers both among residents and the city authorities. This is a huge step in the right direction to promote unity among the residents’ associations. Such unity is commendable in the face of the challenges ratepayers are facing.
The City of Harare has not been making the residents’ plight any easier given its long known failure to implement its own by-laws and the lethargic manner in which it approaches service delivery.
We also applaud the residents’ bodies for encouraging neighbouring wards to form residents’ associations to increase coverage and share information and ideas.
This, in our view, is the best way to deal with current challenges ratepayers are encountering.
We urge residents from all suburbs to take heed and form associations to grow their civic voice and adopt a holistic approach to taking city authorities to task over matters affecting their standards of living.
A united effort is the most effective strategy to demand redress from the city, councillors and district officers.
The residents’ initiative could not have come at a better time than on the eve of elections with new councillors to be elected in the harmonised presidential, parliamentary and council elections on August 23.
This is a huge statement to those seeking public office as councillors that they should expect to provide answers to residents’ inquiries on service delivery and any matters to do with local governance.
Let it be a deterrent to would be bench warmers or wealth seeking politicians bent on using public office to further their nests.
Harare residents will no longer let you just sleep your way to privileges through council meetings while service delivery plummets.
It must not be business as usual in those council chambers as residents must in a united force demand services and answers from the bureaucrats at Town House and the city’s policy makers, the councillors.
We are convinced the trajectory the residents’ associations have taken will bring desired results if all suburbs in Harare get organised and leave no room for personal glory seekers to occupy public office.
The city is crying out loud for a calibre of councillors who value the ethos of servant leadership and shut the doors on those seeking employment to harvest allowances, stands and other benefits.
Harare has been turned into an epi-centre of noise pollution, haphazard and illegal developments, littering and a motley of illegal activities.
That has to stop and residents have a huge say in bringing this chaos to a halt. Residents are the best placed stakeholders in this city to bring back Harare’s lost glamour and the lofty standards of the past, which attracted the admiration of many.
