The Sunday News
Micheal Mhlanga
For those of you who find reading and knowing pleasurable,I believe the past week has tickled your gluttonous cells of news worth the yearning. It is that week that made the ironic headline of Mariyawanda spending US$200 000 on a phone bill, it heralded the President’s inquisition of Tyson’s deal with prophet Magaya and yes of course, the finance minister presented his fiscal budget that had a mixed feeling reception,with some hailing it as a strategic economic revival tool yet some feel threatened that they might be part of the 25 000 jobs to be cut by next year.
The most painful part is that there will not be any bonus for civil servant this year. That is painful. As I grew up, I knew that October meant Christmas clothes shopping. During my childhood days –and my other contemporaries going to Power Sales for the then trendy pants and t-shirt was something I incessantly loathed for. Then of course Bata bubble gummers were part of the annual combo which was courtesy of dad’s bonus.
Paul Matavire dedicated a track to this festive ritual, “inonzibhonasi-ii..wapenga nayo bhonasii-ii..”.I don’t know if kids will have the same or better experience as mine since this year, probably a plate with rice,roasted chicken and coleslaw might not be there on the 25th of December.
Good water is not sold in bottles
The continuing comic drama in the MDC-T appears not to be receding anytime soon and almost every day we wake up to a new episode. A colleague of mine once said,good water is not sold in bottles,the one in our wells,which we are used to is the best beverage.MDC-T appears so determined to dig its own grave that no one seems to really care. It’s only the cheerleaders across the divides who continue singing and marching while castigating the revolutionary party. That is the all-in-all of politics in the opposition party.
Zimbabweans have placed so much faith in the opposition political parties to rescue the nation from the burdens of poverty that one can smell in downtown Harare and many cities and poor suburbs.The question that has to be asked now is whether the citizen has placed too much faith and done the proverbial putting all eggs in one basket by trusting opposition political parties to grow Zimbabwe?
While politicians, because of their control of the arms of the State, ultimately have all the power and influence on developmental issues, Zimbabwean citizens must explore other ways of achieving development and social change outside the opposition conglomerate.It is difficult and almost impossible to fathom how citizens can act on their own as agents of change, but this has to start somewhere and somehow.
As of now, Zimbabweans have placed so much faith in opposition council leaders to rescue them, to lead to so called prosperity, to build schools, to collect garbage, build hospitals. While these expectations are legitimate, the political set-up is such that these political leaders have no capacity or the will to serve the people.
Lest we forget
In my soberness, this week I want to shift my attention to local governance in Zimbabwe. It is no stealthy that MDC dominates majority of urban council chambers. This is where decisions are made and administration executes. I do not want to discuss colossal issues such as employment,tender procurements and so forth, I want to look at what are perceived as “trivial” deliveries, which seem so small but have a huge bearing on our lives.
Let’s talk about sewage bursts,street lights,refuse collection,road refurbishments (even dust roads in the ghettos) and the most touching issue- public liaison with already struggling vendors.It is imperative at this inception to note that from 1980 to 1999 ZANU PF had total control of all local authorities in Zimbabwe and the 2000 election changed a lot of things and it is this period that this article analyses. MDC-T has in the past presided over councils in regression since 1980 and very little to nothing is worth celebrating has ever happened since their takeover as my esteemed comrade educated this other day.
First and foremost, MDC-T came in as a movement that was concerned with transformative development of local governance.
From the transition of ZANU PF to MDC majority led local governance in Zimbabwe one would not doubt that Harare has moved from being a sunshine city between 1980 and 1995 into one of the dirtiest cities in the world. Garbage is now seen in the streets,sewer bursts actually increased during the era of MDC as leaders of local authorities. Chitungwiza Municipality has even denigrated into a huge burden under MDC watch and citizens in 2016 still rely on Harare water which they are given on specified days.
This is not atypical to the Ssunshine City, the City of Kings and Queens may now celebrate the Kingdom residing in pyramids of dumpsters that are infrequently collected. It is a norm that billows of burning dumpsters are the mark of the “hood” whenever ZESA is gone. I was baffled this one time when I learnt that there are now designated corners where refuse can be dumped and then burnt at the end of the week. Residents of Bulawayo have normalised the illegal. My good people, it does not need central government permission to properly collect refuse that is a health hazard to your electorate. I find the argument of that “local government activities are limited because of central government interference…” rather simplistic and insulting.
How on earth does a minister bar councillors from planning and strategising proper refuse collection and disposal but allow them to continue harassing citizens when they send debt collectors?How.Just how?Appalling more, is the fact that Chitungwiza Municipality has even denigrated into a huge burden under MDC watch with citizens in 2016 still relying on Harare water which they are given on specific days.
When I got to learn that the citizens of Chitungwiza are desperate for Harare water, I was quickly reminded of my friend who regularly travels to Harare and carry a case of bottled water. His argument is that Harare water is “undrinkable’. I did not understand this until I was recently in Harare myself. It is only now that the Morton Jeffrey water works is under rehabilitation after the Chinese’ loan of $144 Million has come in handy and this is after the intervention of the responsible minister.
The City of Harare is a good example of how MDC has failed to look into the future and invest its little money into water services and upgrading of water plants. If it was not for the Chinese’ money, Harare could be dry now.Gwenhero Water works is failing even to provide water in a small city like Gweru especially Senga and Nehosho,yet we continue clamouring that MDC will transform our lives…yes they have succeeded in transforming them into waterless and refuse heaped lives and we surely becoming redundant of them.
Are councillors insinuating that the electorate distastes the incumbent so much that they will continue to be voted into office in 2018 even in their failure? Lives of citizens are threatened in almost every city when a mound of refuse plinths,this is when cholera strikes and all blame goes to the Central Government.
Expanses of focus for the opposition have been on demands of laptops for councillors,dealing with factionalism and reunion in their party at the expense of the electorate.
You want citizens to always find blame in ZANU PF yet you skin a skunk in our council chamber. It’s high time we introspect on our decisions of local authorities; we can blame the Central Government all we want but those folks whom we have put in Chambers for 16 years have not served us. In 2005, MDC stalled a lot of local governance progress dealing with its corrupt councillors who had looted stands.
It has been crystal clear in the Mudzuri led Harare council in 2005 that was fired from council and replaced by the Makwavarara Commission because of over spending and corruption. As usual, when they are found guilty, they blame their failure on ZANU PF as they claimed that the then minister had a political mission to accomplish in Harare.
As citizens we have always turned a blind eye to such porous management by the “transformative lot” who have confirmedutter levels of mismanagement and poor prioritisation of resources. For 16 years, people have successfully voted the failing MDC back into local governance. It is the same party that is very synonymous of 70% expenditure and 30% local governance services bill. I once said it, and I shall repeat, do not use your stomach to think lest you only address “nzara dzanhasi” when you make decisions out of sheer unfounded hate of the regime,you simply plunge yourself into a quagmire of stagnancy. The people we put back in Council are worse corrupt than the alleged ones if not on the same index level.
Kambeshuwa! –smh
Because this year there is no bonus for civil servants;the only people who might enjoy Christmas are informal traders,atleast.
However, their lives hang on the thread as they operate in fear. They are scared of those men and women who wear sky blue uniforms and some plain clothed whom they now know. It’s always rush hour in Bulawayo when scotch carts race with Honda fits and people are run over by vegetable carrying racing humans. This is the plight of an honest living citizen who is already suffering from the scourge of economic turmoil, but the City Council is on her heels to confiscate the little she makes money from and demand that she pays a fine.
Now that draws sobs from my eyes because I am what I am because my mother brought me up by selling at Egodini bus terminus. She operated in fear lest her wares would be confiscated and made to jump in the hind of a 10 tonnetruck which the old lady couldn’t. When I look at her,she represents all the mothers I see near Egodini, Hyper,3rd avenue and the street pavements trying to make a living. She represents the widows whose source of living is high demand spinach which when sold may buy a loaf of bread for the family that had its electricity cut. She is the champion of hardworking people who sell bananas and apples so appetising that the last 20 cents in your pocket is worth losing.
But above all, she represents the citizens who have been suffering at the hands of council police whose bosses are MDC-T councillors. These are people meant to protect them from by-laws that should consider the economic strife. These are the leaders who should intervene on how vendors should be treated if they are found to be on the wrong side. But, these are people who turn a blind eye to all these people during their tenure of office, but only resurface towards elections. They are loaded into the same truck like their wares. That is the most inhumane treatment one can see in the streets today,but they choose to quickly forget that and put them back into office.
The speck and the log in their eye
They are quick to point fingers at ZANU PF ministers whenever they fail to manage themselves,who do they point their fingers at when they harass our parents like that? Is it not the same parents who voted them into office to protect them,to represent them and treat them like humans if they so did wrong?This is the same MDC led council that for 16 years has been treating people like animals. My parents on the streets conjure the daily fear of losing all they have to council constabularies.
They are told to blame ZANU PF for all their plight yet the devilsare in their own backyard. The opposition they look upto disservices them, the role of factoring democratic plurality is substituted for property and hierarchy hunger by the same people who sermon flaws of ZANU PF. If the incumbent are that bad as you would want us to believe, why don’t you prove to be better than them? Your atrocious victimising of civilians and insulting their intelligence should be a reprimand of your 2018 opportunity in office.
Micheal Mhlanga is a research and strategic communication specialist and is currently serving Leaders for Africa Network (LAN) as the Programmes and Public Liaison Officer. He also administrates multiple youth public dialogue forums in Zimbabwe including the annual Reading Pan Africanism Symposium (REPS) and Back to Pan Africanism Conference.
Feedback can be sent to [email protected]
