Rutendo Nyeve, Sunday News Reporter
SIX local authorities failed to meet the 30 June deadline of submitting draft masterplans and have requested extensions of up to 30 days to complete the process.
Among the six are Beitbridge Municipality and the Hwange Local Board, with the former committing to submit its draft by tomorrow while the latter has requested to submit by 30 July.
Others are Epworth Local Board, Ruwa Local Board, Mutare RDC who requested to submit by 15 July, as well as Chitungwiza Municipality.
President Mnangagwa launched the Call to Action: No Compromise to Service Delivery blueprint; on 1 November 2023 which was the first stage of interventions to modernise the operations of the local authorities pursuant to the aspirations of Vision 2030.
The blueprint required local authorities to submit various documents including masterplans and valuation rolls by 30 June 2024.
Giving an update on the process, last Friday, Local Government and Public Works Minister, Daniel Garwe said of all the 92 local authorities (60 Rural District Councils and 30 urban authorities) Mutare and Bulawayo already had existent masterplans, which were gazetted in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
He said in terms of masterplans, compliance is at 93 percent, while valuation rolls were at 63 percent while Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems were at 96 percent.
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“On masterplans, out of the remaining 90, 84 have submitted their drafts for review by the ministry and have now requested to place them on the public exhibit for the mandatory 60 days during which period, stakeholders make inputs, comments or raise objections.
“The six which have not submitted are Beitbridge Municipality which requested to submit by 8 July (tomorrow), Epworth Local Board, Ruwa Local Board and Mutare RDC who requested to submit by 15 July, as well as Chitungwiza Municipality and Hwange Local Board who requested to submit by 30 July 2024,” said Minister Garwe.
Turning to the valuation rolls, Minister Garwe said 19 local authorities have had their valuation rolls approved, 44 are on public display, 13 are on report compilation, 13 on the inspection stage and three on the budget stage.
“In terms of the Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP), 22 local authorities are fully utilising ERP, 65 are partially utilising ERP and three have new ERP and these include Epworth Local Board, Sanyati RDC and Chirundu Local Board. Mazowe RDC’s ERP is outdated while in Harare it is not functioning
“May I further explain that most of the local authorities, however, still need to fully utilise all the modules of the ERPS systems to improve efficiency. Therefore, in terms of the Call to Action blueprint overall compliance by the Local Authorities, stands at 84 percent,” said Minister Garwe.
He said the ministry is happy with the progress that the local authorities have made in implementing the blueprint and his ministry is now interrogating matters concerning non-compliant local authorities, on a case-by-case basis. @nyeve14
