2024: A nightmare for Harare residents

Blessings Chidakwa-Herald Reporter

Can anything good come out of Harare City Council?

Year in, year out, this is the question ratepayers always ask, but it seems to continuously fall on deaf ears.

In 2014 Harare City Council announced its ambitious target of being a world class city by 2025 and with only a few days left it is only ‘Much Ado About Nothing,’ as William Shakespeare would aptly sum it.

2024 will go down memory lane in the history of the city as one of the worst, to be precise a thorn in the flesh of ratepayers.

Treated water gushes to waste along West Road in Avondale while residents’ taps are dry

So terrible were the living standards that sewer bursts, water woes, uncollected garbage, poor street lighting and corruption was the order of the day.

Harare is the capital city! 

It should have been given all the attention it deserved in terms of service delivery, as it is the face of the country.

But with the opposition in charge it remains a fallacy, it proved that it lacks the capacity and intellectual acumen to restore the city to the status they found it in.

In terms of roads thanks to the Government which had to intervene like it always does to bail out the incompetent leadership led by Mayor Jacob Mafume.

Mayor Mafume seems short of ideas to turn around the misfortunes bedevilling the city as facts speak for themselves. 

Refuse collection

Refuse collection, one of the city’s core mandates, was neglected.

Garbage was piling up in most parts of the once “Sunshine City”, including the Central Business District, at a very disturbing rate.

Litter was dumped on street corners, open spaces and in sacred places like graveyards and at churches.

It is fair to say the city spent the better part of the year struggling to collect garbage on regular intervals, leading to the mushrooming of illegal dump-sites in various places.

When push came to shove, the Government would intervene through Chenesa Harare programmes to save the dire situation.

Despite getting assistance Harare City Council simply proved their incompetence as the city was simply filthy, stinking and an eyesore!

It was all plans, no action as the city at some point planned to set up waste transfer stations that never was.

Water woes

Dry taps were the order of the day becoming more of a habit than an event.

For those that were lucky they at least received water thrice a week with residents being forced to resort to unsafe water sources risking contracting water borne diseases.

It was either the council was doing routine maintenance at the primary source of water Morton Jaffray Water Works, or pipe bursts.

Harare’s major water treatment plant, Morton Jaffray, has a capacity of about 700 mega litres a day, but the city would produce an average of half that capacity.

While water woes became common the loss of non-revenue water was also prevalent.

The ratepayers are the ones that bore the brunt of paying for the huge costs of water treatment chemicals.

Little if any efforts were put to attend to pipe bursts or even to address the long-standing issue of replacing ageing water treatment pipes.

Penchant for luxury

The only thing Harare councillors and managers are good at is spending. Penchant for luxury was their everyday thing.

Luxury vehicles costing US$300,000 each were purchased for top management under unclear circumstances at a time the council struggled to pay salaries for workers.

The corrupt busting ongoing Commission of Inquiry into the governance of Harare City Council (HCC) uncovered that over US$11 million was squandered on workshops in a period of six months.

Sewer bursts

As the popular saying goes, “improper preparation breeds poor performance” it is a true statement befitting the City of Harare. 

For decades the opposition has failed to invest in its water and sewer reticulation systems.

Sewer bursts were all over the city. Eyesore, is what branded most suburbs, including high residential areas as Warren Park, Dzivaresekwa, Glen View, Budiriro, Mabvuku-Tafara, among others.

Like the preceding year, less attention was taken to address issues of sewer bursts which continued to pose serious health hazards.

What was most irking is that the perennial sewer bursts were recurring on the very same hotspots council officials would have fixed.

As the year was coming to an end the city woke up to shocking news that Lake Chivero was contaminated.

Harare City Council was pumping raw sewage into Mukuvisi River which feeds in Lake Chivero, the city’s primary water source, a situation that led to serious health and environmental hazards.

 Tenders

This was the biggest heist the city experienced. 

Prices were inflated for basic things with officials in the procurement department wanting to purchase 500 desktop computers at US$4 000 each above the market price of US$700.

Five Harare City Council officials including town clerk Eng Hosiah Chisango were also arrested on allegations of awarding a local company Juluka Endo Joint Venture a tender worth US$9,2 million for streetlights.

Harare City Council also grabbed the limelight for the wrong reasons after rejecting a US$350 000 locally-developed enterprise resource planning (ERP) system from Harare Institute of Technology opting for a US$2, 1 million to a foreign company.

The city could also have been prejudiced of US$816 000 by a water treatment chemicals supplier, Nanotech Water Solutions, that only acquitted US$252 000 from US$1,1 million availed from Devolution Funds to improve the city’s water purification.

Leadership

Although the city spent the better part of the year with more than half of its top managers and all councillors after elections that failed to translate to improved services.

Perhaps the city was in ‘wrong’ hands as exposed by the Commission of Inquiry into Harare City Council’s Affairs.

Town Clerk Hosiah Chisango was suspended while the human resources department was always changing hands between Mr Mathew Marara and Bosman Matengarufu.

In terms of those acting who remain in their capacities are finance director Mr Godfrey Kusangaya whose contract was renewed for a year and chamber secretary Mr Warren Chiwawa who had applied for the job but turned down.

Mr Chiwawa was turned down by the Local Government Board despite having done well in the interviews. The only substantive directors who remained in office are that of health, Dr Prosper Chonzi, Engineer Phakamile Mabhena Moyo (Water) and Isaac Chawatama (Works).

It was indeed a silly year as evidenced by the last full council meeting where councillors nearly exchanged blows on who should vote.

Councillors Adonia Shoko and Ceceila Chimbiri verbally fought to do the closing prayer. Councillor Chimbiri had to walk out in anger as other councillors were calling her “unfit” to pray especially ahead of the festive seasons with others requesting for a neutral person to lead the prayer.

Eventually, Cllr Shoko did the prayer which was more of a joke than someone speaking to the almighty God.

Hope 2025 will be better as residents await to witness the world class city.