City services face airtime crisis
HARARE municipality’s tendency of getting its priorities wrong has been exposed after revelations that effective communication between its workers was being hampered by lack of airtime, while the council splashed money on iPads for councillors.
Auditor-General Mildred Chiri’s recent report also unmasked Harare’s misdirected priorities after it hired constuction equipment for $222 950 when it could have repaired its own for $159 969.
According to a City Health Department report to a recent special council meeting, Town Clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango said the city’s effective communication with emergency response teams was being hampered by “mere” lack of airtime.
“Transport and fuel logistics are hampering effective surveillance and response to rumours and/or cases,” he said.
“Effective communication with response teams is also being hindered by lack of airtime and real time internet access.”
Ironically, the cash-strapped council recently splashed about US$23 000 on iPads as each of city’s 46 councillors while some selected council managers are set to receive an iPad, whose average market price is in the region of US$500.
In the report, Eng Chisango also took a swipe at his workers saying they were doing their job at a snail’s pace.
“Several sewer blockages were reported in Glen View 1, 2, 3 and Budiriro 5B. The Department of Works took longer to rectify or unblock the sewer pipes in reported areas,” he said.
“The response time to sewer blockages has not been good. Some areas in Budiriro took more than two weeks to be attended to and this exposed the residents to enteric diseases as the areas are prone to outbreaks of cholera and typhoid.”
Harare council still has a mountain to climb if it is serious in its quest of attaining world class city status by 2025.
Meanwhile, the city council has resolved to terminate an agreement with Chinese firm Three Sixty-Five Mart that had been picked to develop Copacabana after it failed to execute the project within the stipulated timeframe, reports Yeukai Karengezheka.
The city signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the company on November 5, 2014 for the project which was expected to be completed in three years.
Eng Chisango told a recent business committee meeting that nothing had materialised due to lack of direct communication with the investor and absence of a project roadmap.
However, the local representative of the company had submitted a project works programme on May 12 which indicated that the project would be implemented over a period of 36 months from the date of signing the agreement.
Due to the prolonged delays and lack of clarity, the committee noted with concern that no significant progress had been made towards implementation of the joint venture.
“For the reasons stated above, the previous decision by council to enter into a joint venture agreement with Three Sixty-Five Mart (Pvt) Ltd for the development of Copacabana bus terminus is hereby rescinded on the grounds that the project failed to commence within the prescribed timeframe as well as that challenges have been encountered in efforts towards direct communication with the partner.