Fairness Moyana in Hwange
Councillors at Hwange Local Board (HLB) have ousted the Council chairperson, Clr Morrison Mafa and replaced him with ward 7 Petersen Ncube following a vote of no confidence.
The development comes as a shock as the newly elected Council boss, Clr Ncube is one of the only two Zanu PF councilors in the CCC-led local authority out of majority of 13. Hwange Local Board has 15 elected councilors and five proportional representatives, for a total of 20 councilors.
Sources told Sunday News that councillors voted to remove Clr Mafa on Wednesday citing failure to execute his duties which was resulting in service delivery challenges.
“Councilors exercised their powers derived from the law when it comes to execution of duties where they felt that Clr Mafa was incompetent. He was not effective when it came to engaging the government on certain critical matters and would in fact avoid such meetings. Hence the councilors felt there needed a fresh approach and someone who would appeal.”
In Zimbabwe, the laws governing councils and passing of a vote of no confidence are outlined in the Urban Councils Act (Chapter 29:15). Though this Act doesn’t explicitly mention a vote of no confidence, it provides for the removal of councilors under certain circumstances. For instance, a councilor can be removed from office if they fail to attend council meetings for three consecutive months without a valid reason, or if they are convicted of a serious crime. Additionally, the Act empowers the minister of Local Government to suspend or dissolve a council if it fails to perform its duties or functions.
Clr Ncube confirmed the development arguing that HLB was repackaging to ensure it maximized on developments and opportunities.
“The law requires us to look at our performance and adjust so we were a fairly new council when we moved in but with time, we realized we can do better with these new ideas hence we had a holistic repackaging. You need to be decisive because we have opportunities that we need to maximise on so we looked at everything that needed to be repackaged. It’s not a change a at such, when you look at opportunities for improvement you also want to package yourself in such a manner that you are able to maximize on them,” said Clr Ncube.
He said the local authority was now moving towards engaging and working closely with key stakeholders as it sought to construct an engineered landfill to deal with solid waste management which has been a major environmental concern.
“We need to grow in a best run small local authority and that in itself means we don’t lose focus on stakeholders like residents and their concerns. We also need to bring onboard several stakeholders that are operating around HLB and there hasn’t been much going in that area. We have other projects that are lined up which have been significant to our operations as a local authority. For example, we have been seized with the idea of bringing together key stakeholders and come up with an engineered landfill that is a key area in terms of solid waste management. So going at it alone is a mammoth task but I’m sure bringing in together stakeholders then we can come up with one adequate landfill because we share a common solid waste dumpsite for me it’s a low hanging fruit that we can maximize quickly.”
The local authority was also working on engaging new investors in the mining sector in an effort to address the sprouting activities especially near human settlements making it difficult to regulate operations.
“We also have a lot of investments that have come onboard in Hwange but there are some ideas that are not consistent with the vision of a local authority so we need to engage and ensure that they buy in to the idea of building with us as Council. You will find for example a company setting up coking plants or mining site in residential areas and that makes it difficult to regulate and supervise that area. We need to find each other and make sure that they come to Hwange Local Board and be part of the total development that we are look at so we need a certain level of engagement in that area,” added Clr Ncube.
Residents have raised concerns over the environmental degradation that include air, noise and water pollution that they have been subjected to as a result of companies that were mining within residential or communal areas.
The new sheriff pledged to reform Council in the way it engaged residents and key stakeholders with an aim to improve its revenue collections and its sustainability.
“We have also not been doing well in terms of revenue collection we appreciate that residents have got their concerns and it’s about time we engaged with an idea of resolving this disconnect we work together we move on. We also have got a key stakeholder who is our principal, the government we have been doing well on call-to-action issues but on matters pertaining to self-sustenance as a local authority there are still a lot of opportunities for improvement so we repackaged ourselves in such a manner that we able to maximise on those opportunities.”
As of November 30, 2024, HLB is owed over US$4 million in unpaid rates from property owners. The local authority manages the eastern and northern areas of Hwange town while corporates, Hwange Colliery Company, National Railways of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Power Company runs their own administrations.
