The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube Municipal Reporter
THURSDAY 1 January saw people celebrate the dawn of the new year; a year with its own challenges and goals. Some set about planning and jotting their resolutions for the year and some reflected on the journey past noting their successes and failures.The Bulawayo City Council (BCC) also took the same route, reflecting on the year past and planning for the year ahead.
For BCC, 2014 was a unique year as not only was the city celebrating its 120-year anniversary but also played host to a regional sporting event — the African Union Sports Council Region 5 Under-20 Youth Games — a first for a city which is not a capital.
As the city reflects on the year past and the year ahead, Sunday News municipal reporter Vusumuzi Dube (VD) had the opportunity to interview the acting town clerk Mrs Sikhangele Zhou (SZ) on issues ranging from BCC’s crippling financial position, the city’s hosting of the youth games, the pre-paid water meter project and a host of other issues affecting the local authority.
VD: Mrs Zhou, the year 2014 has come and gone as a local authority what have been the major highlights and challenges faced during the year?
SZ: Probably one of the major highlights is that the city celebrated its 120-year anniversary. As council we were really grateful to our residents for their active participation in these celebrations, even our artistes and the business community gave their all during these celebrations to make them a worthy affair. Even the train ride to Figtree and back was highly subscribed, this to show that the whole city was in a celebratory mood.
We were also very fortunate to have been selected to host the African Union Sports Council Under-20 Youth Games and for this we felt very much humbled because Bulawayo was the first city that is not a capital city to host these games.
We appreciate the development that was brought about by these games and although I do not have the necessary figures I am sure the city’s economy improved slightly during the days when our foreign visitors were in the city.
These games saw the city having a lot of infrastructure either built or renovated, right now we are in a position where we can safely say we have internationally recognised facilities.
2014 was also the year the Government introduced the Integrated Result Management initiative, which also coincided with our own strategic plan. We managed to train all our employees on these two initiatives, even the lowest ranked person like the cleaner where we emphasised the importance of results based work ethic thereby going a long way in improving service delivery.
VD: You talk of the facilities which the city gained from the hosting of the youth games; there have been fears that the local authority will not be able to maintain them, what is your take on these allegations?
SZ: It will be uncouth for us to neglect these facilities once they are handed over to us. It will obviously be a challenge but a challenge which we will be willing to take.
We must not forget that some of these facilities come with a high maintenance value but since they are ours, we have to carry the burden for our future generations. One facility which comes to mind that will have a high maintenance cost attached to it will be the swimming pool, which after the renovations now uses a lot of power as the pool now has to be heated.
However, we know what lies ahead and we also know what is expected of us, we will maintain the facilities and with funds permitting we will also continue upgrading these and other facilities in the city.
VD: Still looking at the year 2014, there was a huge backlash over the pre-paid water meter pilot project in Cowdray Park, come 2015 will the local authority continue with this project?
SZ: That project is bound by a council resolution where it was decided that we embark on the pilot project, which I must emphasise will be reviewed after a certain period, to see its successes and failures.
The reason we chose Cowdray Park is that we noted the section we are targeting is not serviced by water although the rig mains for water has been done, so in order to ensure that people have access to water so they purchase coupons with their allocated free five kilolitres.
I am of the view that the prepaid water meter project is the way to go because it will help us manage our water noting that right now we already have over 10 000 malfunctioning water meters.
It will also benefit the consumers as they will be in a position to manage their own water, we will give them their free allocation of five kilolitres which is a whole 25 drums a month. Honestly someone can say we are not being sincere to the poor but without being blunt I doubt that any poor person can use 25 drums of water a month.
This system also ensures someone can easily manage their debt because people will now be using what they want hence paying for water which they really used.
VD: Still on projects it has been over a year now since we were told that Egodini bus terminus will be renovated into a regional public transport hub and shopping mall but nothing seems to be happening, can you give us an update on what is happening with regards to this project?
SZ: It is true that by now we wanted this project to have been started and probably completed. What happened with that project is that the tender itself was a bit unique as we had asked for an expression of interest, which gave the companies leeway to brainstorm on what exactly they wanted to do.
When we settled for Terracotta we ended up negotiating longer than usual as we also had certain aspects we were insisting on and the company had its own plans but towards the end of last year we managed to narrow the discussions to a few minor matters, which makes me confident that the contract will be signed by the end of the first quarter of this year.
As for moving the informal traders this will only happen according to the contractor’s plans, we cannot obviously start moving them now because there is no work taking place but once the works have begun it will happen naturally no one will tell anyone that it is time to move.
VD: The state of our roads continues to be a cause for concern, what is the plan of action this year?
SZ: We are certainly not happy with the state of our roads. To be frank our roads need a total overhaul, our road network has outlived its lifespan, if we had the finances we would be talking of replacing the entire network.
It is unfortunate that we no longer licence cars, meaning the very cars that are using our roads cannot pay directly to us but we have to get the money from Zinara, which gives us more problems because while they can announce our allocation the disbursement never happens immediatetly, we struggle to get the funds while the roads continue to deteriorate.
This year we plan to reseal about 30 kilometres and to help us rehabilitate more of the roads we aim at purchasing more road construction equipment. On Monday we also started a pothole patching blitz but this is honestly not the solution because it becomes useless patching an already aged road infrastructure.
Still on roads, we are eagerly awaiting the High Court judgment on our parking meter tender, as soon as that is over we will tirelessly work on that project so that we may be able to get funds for roads rehabilitation initiative.
VD: Ingwebu Breweries, a one-time council cash cow, continues to face operational challenges, is there any turnaround strategy to try revitalise the brewery?
SZ: It is unfortunate that Ingwebu has never declared a dividend in ages but things are slowly going back to normal. I recently had an opportunity to see their partial financial results and they are a bit promising, as it seems last year they had a bit of a profit.
However, we can keep on crying foul on the performance of this entity when frankly the problem is with us as the shareholder because we have been milking a cow that we have not been feeding. We haven’t been giving them enough finances as they need a lot of capitalisation so as to compete with other competitors. Due to our financial situation we are also not encouraging Ingwebu to borrow much and I tell you that we have received a lot of complaints from the board tasked with overseeing affairs at the Brewery that we are effectively expecting them to box other competitors with their hands tied behind their backs.
VD: You have now worked with this batch of councillors for over a year now after the 2013 elections, how has been their performance to date?
SZ: Since this was a new council we went through a phase where we had to find each other but I am glad to say that they have a fair interest in all council processes. You have to note that council business is quite complex, yes one might be educated but they have to be inside the council chambers to understand how some things work. But to be frank we worked well with these councillors until late last year when they allowed politics to infiltrate the chambers.
I must emphasise that besides the setback we have been working well, they (the councillors) are so united in a number of issues like housing delivery, I hope this year will be another fruitful one in terms of service delivery.
VD: How has the city performed financially?
SZ: On the 01 January 2014, the City was owed $77,2 million. This figure has since ballooned to $90 million as at the end of the year. This is compounded by consumers failing to settle their indebtedness to Council thereby compromising service delivery.
Lack of investment in the city and the prevailing liquidity crunch negatively impacted on Council’s financial outlook. The first quarter of the year saw cash receipts averaging $5 million as opposed to $6,5 million for the same period in 2013. Council requires on average $7,2 million per month for the provision of basic services.
Council approved a standstill budget of $103 762 104 for year 2014. Actual income and expenditure up to November 2014 amounted to $84 250 331 and $75 572 801 respectively.
We are still, however, appealing to our residents to pay what they owe council, we understand that financially people are lagging behind but I believe some residents are just not paying for the sake of it. I will tell you that recently we did a ward to ward survey where we discovered people in Makokoba are paying way better than those in Burnside, which clearly shows you that some of these people are just not paying not because they don’t have the resources but are simply being negligent.
VD: As we enter 2015 what are the immediate goals and what is your message to the city?
SZ: While we extend our appreciation for the support we have received from our residents we plead with them to pay what they can to council so we may be able to effectively deliver the required services.
As I earlier alluded to we continue worrying about the state of our roads and we will also look at the issue of sewer pollution. In December we got three more refuse trucks, which will add on to our current fleet. It won’t increase our frequency of collecting refuse but it will ensure that our trucks will not skip a scheduled collection.
This year we also aim at reducing non-revenue water by addressing the problem of leaks within our piping system.
Over and above all we will tackle 2015 and ensure that by the end of the year our city would have made much more achievements.
VD: Thank you Mrs Zhou.
