The People’s Democratic Party is irked by recent remarks from the Deputy Chief Secretary in the office of the President Ray Ndhlukula accusing the City of Harare of failure when the blame also falls squarely into Mugabe’s court.
Mugabe is the chief architect of all the vices that have dogged our country; sadly our cities have also been an immediate casualty. While we appreciate the fact that local authorities could have made better decisions in many instances, Mugabe must also take responsibility for the bigger picture of redefining failure.
Mugabe is running an ineffective state drowning in corruption, fragility and now facing state failure.
His clear defiance of the supreme law by refusing to implement devolution as promulgated by the National constitution has made it difficult for local authorities to make independent decisions.
The cities have failed to even appoint their own employees with high levels of interference from central government at the present moment Mugabe’s evil hand has seen municipalities being manned by city fathers who speak a different language from the policies that the management implement; Mugabe and ZANU PF are at the centre of this confusion.
The People’s Democratic Party recently stated that the cities have a hallmark of cities in war torn countries, we argued then as we do now that down town Harare or Fourth Street is reflective of Freetown, Monrovia or Kinshasa .
Part of the rot and filthiness is a result of Mugabe’s lack of vision, 37 years after independence the city is still supporting over three million people using infrastructure which was designed for 800 thousand white people.
Mugabe’s lack of vision is even dangerous going forward with surveys predicting that 56% of the people on the African continent will be living in urban centres by 2050.Zimbabwe is already struggling with cholera and typhoid; it will only get worse when urban population increases.
ZANU PF must look at the disasters in a holistic sense, despite the fact that councillors have also been involved in corrupt scandals, central government has been worse. They parcel out land including on wetlands and spaces reserved for schools.
Part of the reason why the cities are disorganised is a product of the unemployment that Mugabe and friends have created. ZANU PF has failed to create jobs for the working people including College and University graduates. Resultantly vending has become the order of the day.
ZANUPF has presided over massive de-industrialisation which has seen most of our people turning to venting for survival. Chinamasa even boasted of the informalisation as a game changer much to the shock of the entire universe.
The picture of tomatoes and onions on the streets of Harare tells a bizarre story of storms and darkness, it is like a book of sad tales which you would not want your kids to read, and obviously this sight is not so appealing to elites like Ray Ndhlukula.
There is no substitute for vision, we reiterate that Mugabe does not have ideas beyond power retention, the reason why he has decided to close all the schools in Marondera force marching people to attend his rallies, we find this unacceptable. The only stink we know is his failure, incompetence and mediocrity.
The Challenges that the cities face can only be solved if the citizens elect the right people for the right offices especially after Mugabe’s time. We also make the following suggestions.
- Implementation of Devolution as provided for in the National Constitution.
- Stop further land invasions by land barons including the ones linked to ZANUPF.
- Converting the country’s accumulation model from one based on extraction, to one based on industrialization, value addition and beneficiation.
- Old industrial funds created during the GNU such as DiMAF and ZETREV should be revived and recapitalised. Urgent attention should be paid to SMEs, recapitalization of SEDCO and other instruments of credit for Small and Medium businesses. This will take a significant chuck our people out of street vending.
- Develop an urban transport system including a metro system for Bulawayo and Harare.
- The defining status quo of modern cities is the development of a fast, environmentally clean, urban commuter network commonly known as the Tube or the Metro.
- The PDP suggests a modern metro- system for all its major cities with priority being given to Chitungwiza – Harare – Norton – Ruwa, – Network and the Pumula – Llewellyn – Cement Side – Bulawayo –Network. This will ensure a departure from the current police spikes madness which has seen many people losing the lives.
