By Luke Tamborinyoka
On Friday, 28 February 2020, the people’s President Advocate Nelson Chamisa and the party leadership hosted a Mayors’ Forum where the party’s elected local government leadership from across the country chronicled their successes and challenges in delivering prudent services to the people.
The forum was part of the new culture of performance management in the MDC which is aimed at ensuring our councils perform effectively in delivering the services for which they were elected.
Also present in the highly interactive eight-hour robust engagement was the patty’s Alternative Minister of Local Government Eng. Elias Mudzuri, his deputy Clifford Hlatywayo and the Vice President responsible for overseeing local governance issues, Hon. Tendai Biti.
It emerged from the meeting that the MDC-led local authorities had done wonders amid gross interference by central government, which intervenes even on issues that should ordinarily be under the purview of elected people’s representatives.
It must be stated from the outset that chapter 14 of the national Constitution explicitly states that there must be devolution of governmental powers and responsibilities to provincial, metropolitan councils and local authorities. The Constitution is clear that only elected representatives must manage affairs at local government level.
The government has however paid lip-service to the devolution principle, with central government abrogating upon itself all authority and usurping the powers of the elected representatives of the people in the lower tiers.
Section 274 of the national Constitution specifically states that only elected urban local authorities must manage the affairs of the people and that only elected councillors must administer the government at local level.Section 276 states that a local authority has the right to government on its own initiative, the local affairs of the people within the area for which it was established and “has all the powers necessary to do so.”
The eight hour robust engagement at Morgan Richard Tsvangirai House exposed that central governing was grossly interfering in the administration of local government and was behind all the challenges facing the people. Six main challenges emerged from the meeting:
1. Elected policy-makers shut out of all procurement
All procurement has now been centralized and local authorities do not have powers to procure water chemicals and guarantee delivery of clean water to the people. Procurement, even of a simple pen or even any other minute gadget, is now being done by a central procurement authority under the office of the President.
This means that the elected people’s representatives can no longer execute their mandate, in brazen violation of the Constitution. Prudent service delivery has been grossly affected because of bureaucratic drudgery and deliberate central government delays especially in the procurement of essential commodities so as to sabotage the mainly MDC authorities in charge at local government level.
2. Gross government interference in staffing
Councils do not even have powers to recruit their own staff in furtherance of their own plans and programmes on which they would have consulted residents.
Despite there being directors of Human Resources in the various councils, there have been myriad directives from the Minister of Local Government that are meant to usurp the recruitment of from respective elected local authority.
Added to this, the Local Government Board that should oversee the recruitment of senior technical council officials is not in place. Most councils have been suspended and victimized for taking action against corrupt Town Clerks, most of whom are sentries of ZANU PF interests in the various towns. Chitungwiza and Gweru municipal authorities are pertinent examples in this respect.
3. Incessant power outages
The 18-hour power outages caused by the chronic shortages of foreign currency and for which the clueless and illegitimate government is solely responsible, have caused massive anxiety in local authorities. The power shortages have not only meant shortage of power for domestic and industrial use but have made it impossible to pump water and sewage, further endangering the lives of residents in the various towns cities.
4. Anomalies and favoritism in disbursement of devolution funds
Government has paid lip-service to the principle of devolution encapsulated in the national Constitution. Even though government has purported to be distributing devolution funds, there have been serious anomalies in the amounts disbursed to the respective local authorities.
The unfair disbursements have seen larger local authorities run by the MDC receiving less funds while smaller councils dominated by ZANU PF councillors have been awarded huge amounts. For example, the bigger local authority of Zvishavane has received less funds than the smaller Runde Rural District Council.
The MDC-run Rusape council has received less money than the surrounding smaller rural district councils that are ZANU PF-controlled.
To make the situation murkier, the provincial councils envisaged under the devolution principle encapsulated in chapter 14 of the Constitution are still to be set up, seven years after over 90 percent of Zimbabweans overwhelmingly endorsed the new Constitution in a referendum.
5. Government still to approve council budgets
In order to cripple the MDC-run councils, central government is still to approve the budgets of most urban local authorities. Harare is a case in point, where service delivery has been seriously hampered by central government’s deliberate ploy to delay the approval of the council’s budget, which has made it impossible for the capital city to charge competitive tariffs that enable council to deliver prudent services to the residents.
Ironically, in the case of Harare, Local Government insisted July Moyo two weeks ago wrote a memourging the municipality urgently to pay its debt to Chemplex Holdings, a Zanu PF-linked company involved in the procurement of water chemicals.
July Moyo conveniently chose to forget that Harare was failing to service many of its debts apart from the one owed to Chemplex on the grounds that it was Moyo himself who was still to approve the city’s budget for 2020, thereby grossly impeding council from servicing its debts.
Since 2023, Harare and other cities have been in financial doldrums owing to ZANU PF’s populist announcements towards elections cancelling all debts owed to council, including those owed by government, the biggest debtor to most urban local authorities. This has incentivized non-payment of rates as residents and corporate consumers now have a legitimate expectation that their debts will be written off in the eve of every election.
6. ZANU PF-linked land barons parceling land to themselves
Most urban local authorities have been fleeced of their land by ZANU PF-linked land barons. Harare, Chitungwiza, Rusape and other local authorities have had most of their land taken away by bigwigs linked to the party (mis)running central government.
The mayors and council chairpersons told President Chamisa that most of their land had been parceled out to well-heeled ZANU PF cronies, particularly during the eras of Ignatius Chombo and Saviour Kasukuwere at the Local Government Ministry.
Keeping the head above the water
Despite the six main challenges chronicled above, most MDC-run local authorities had made sterling progress to ensure that some modicum of normal service is delivered to the residents, albeit under very difficult circumstances.
Most councils have signed twinning arrangements with other cities outside the country; they have installed solar-powered street lights as is the case with Norton and some have bought refuse trucks even amid gross interference by central government.
President Chamisa told the mayors and council chairpersons of local authorities that they owed their mandate to the people who elected them and not to anyone else. Notwithstanding the challenges, he urged them to continue holding feedback meetings with the residents and to continue delivering services.
At the end of the day, said President Chamisa, it is the people who are sovereign. In spite of the hardships, councils must strive to deliver prudent services to the people.
It was evident during last Friday’s Mayors’ Forum that it is an understatement to say that the illegitimate Zanu PF regime is throwing spanners in the works to disable local authorities from arguing out their mandate.
In fact, ZANU PF is throwing the whole tools box into the works!
Luke Tamborinyoka is the Deputy National Spokesperson of the MDC. He is a multiple award winning journalist and a former secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists.
He is an ardent political scientist who won the Book Prize for best student when he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science at the University of Zimbabwe. You can interact with him on Facebook or on the twitter handle @luke_tambo.
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