The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Municipal Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council has cleared the air over the disbursement of the ward retention fund saying that despite the resolution to establish the fund having been passed in 2016, projects under the fund only started being implemented in August last year.
The fund was first mooted in the 2015 budget outreach programme where the council resolved to be funding projects that were decided by the ward under the leadership of their elected councillor. Funding for the projects was to be tied to what each ward contributed to council’s coffers as a means of encouraging residents to pay their bills.
The receipts into the fund are three percent of all cash received from payment of services billed to ward residents.
However, the matter has been a thorn in the flesh for council officials in the past couple of weeks, with residents under the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA) writing to the local authority demanding answers on the disbursement of the fund and why some wards had never utilised the fund since its inception.
In a written response to the residents, the city’s Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube revealed that while the resolution to establish the fund was passed in 2016 it only became operational a year later in July 2017 and further the earliest possible implementation could only have been in August last year.
“It is of significance to note that much as the promulgation of the resolution kicked-in in 2016, the resolution giving birth to the operationalisation of the fund was only given the nod in July 2017, pretty much a year after its promulgation. The time lag between promulgation and operationalisation clearly left council officials at a quandary, tantamount to being between a rock and a hard place because such legal technicalities may amount to insubordination on the part of the officials. For purposes of clarity we need to elucidate that it could not be possible for council officials to have disbursed anything by way of ward development fund in 2017 at all as the fund only started operating in July 2017 and therefore the earliest possible implementation could only have been August 2018,” said the town clerk.
Mr Dube further stated that while projects done under the fund were identified by ward development committees led by councillors, its implementation remained the prerogative of council officials.
“It is common cause that ward development funds are a creature of statute in that council made a resolution for the fund creation. The modalities of implementation remain a preserve for council officials. By all accounts the officials have towed the line in accordance with the council resolution within the ambit of scarcity, poor economic performance, defaulting by ratepayers and lethargic economy that is performing sub-par at macro level.
“Council has not been spared of the vagaries of a lethargic economy and has to operate a shoe string budget. All what council has been doing has been egg-shell balancing to ensure that most critical areas that make the residents tick are catered for while exploring avenues of creating new revenue streams,” he said.
Regarding to wards that have had never received any allocations since the fund’s inception, the town clerk said that there has been change of guard regarding councillors and processes of project proposals are underway. According to a council report wards 3, 5, 11, 12, 21, 23, 24, 27 and 28 had failed to get their ward retention fund allocation since 2016. In other wards just a fraction of the funds had been released with two wards (15 and 22) having surprisingly surpassed their allocations and now at minus.
A quick perusal of the least of councillors and wards that have not received any allocation wards 11 and 12 has councillors who served in the last council — Clr Pilate Moyo and Clr Lilian Mlilo — hence there was no change of guard since 2016.
Commenting on the matter, BPRA acting co-ordinator, Mr Emmanuel Ndlovu said they were still going through the response and will come up with detailed comment this week.
“We are still analysing the report. The town clerk has informed us that more information is coming. Although the figures do not make a lot of sense for now, we hope there will be more clarity with new information that they shall share. However, we appreciate BCC for taking their time to respond, we will be able to issue our clear position next (this) week,” said Mr Ndlovu.
