Suburban
This week the City of Harare commissioned an array of vehicles and heavy machinery for use in service delivery.
City officials believe the new equipment will help improve service delivery in the capital. Council must be commended for a job well done in acquiring this essential equipment.
However, we wish to point it out that the city must train its workers on how to maintain and keep the equipment and machinery in good working order. It is important for workers who use such equipment to be undergo some form of training including how to take care of the machinery.
Drivers of the new vehicles must also be cautioned against bad driving and lack of care of the vehicles they will be using. Surely there is need for drivers to at least slow down or try to avoid potholes when driving.
On its part the city must ensure the vehicles are serviced on time and maintained in good condition so that they at least serve residents for the desired period of time before they are retired out of service.
Although we applaud the city for the efforts it is making in capacitating itself to provide effective services to ratepayers, the municipality is still a long way from reaching the optimal operating level in terms of capital and machinery.
Harare should ideally be operating with 62 refuse compactors with an acceptable minimum availability of 30 trucks. But at the moment most of the city’s refuse compactors are broken down.
This has seen residents of some wards brokering deals with the municipality to revive and maintain some of the refuse trucks on condition they are dedicated to serving their wards. Of late the City of Harare has taken delivery of a number of new refuse trucks but they remain way lower than the 62 the city needs. There are also reports that the city’s wards might be increased from the current 46 to 53 to accommodate a number of new settlements that have emerged over the years.
We hope some of the newly acquired vehicles will be allocated to district officers who need them to go round the districts under their purview and attend to service delivery issues.
In September, residents from Borrowdale under the Borrowdale Ratepayers and Residents Association repaired the council vehicle allocated to the district officer at Borrowdale District Office.
The residents felt compelled to help with the repairs in a bid to ensure the district officer is mobile and can be able to push service delivery across Ward 18.
The car was grounded because the City of Harare was failing to fix a clutch problem and a private motor mechanic was brought in and diagnosed the problem. Residents then bought the spares and the car was back on the road.
We trust the new cars will be taken good care of so that they remain on the road serving residents. District officers need cars to superintend their districts. They must be able to attend to residents’ queries, identify illegal settlements and stop ensure the city’s by-laws are enforced.
