Chitungwiza City: Whose responsibility is it any way?

WHEN the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Mr Nick Mangwana announced on July 16 2021 that non-essential travel between Harare and its satellite towns of Chitungwiza and Norton was no longer permitted except for workers in essential services, MDC Alliance’s (MDC-A) deputy chairman, Job Sikhala, jumped on the issue in an attempt to score cheap political points.

“In Chitungwiza, we are not a city,” he tweeted. “We don’t have even a city centre. We have got townships dotted around from Chigovanyika (shopping centre in St Mary’s high density suburb) to Makoni (shopping centre in Seke high density suburb). Trying to classify us as a city today and ban 90 percent of people who work in Harare to travel is stupidity.”

Sikhala, as has become the norm with MDC A faction members, attempted to criticise Government on two fronts.

Firstly, he desperately tried to present Government as unfairly targeting Chitungwiza and Norton by barring its residents from travelling into the capital city.

Secondly, he attempted to criticise Government for the largely residential nature of Chitungwiza town, as if this was material to the Covid-19 pandemic issue at hand.

His second criticism brought to the fore a very pertinent issue – the lack of development and growth of Chitungwiza.

Sikhala’s criticism of Government was calculated to present Government as not doing enough to develop Chitungwiza.

This is despite the fact that the town has been in the hands of various MDC factions and formations since 2000.

The MDC’s 20-year stewardship of the town has been characterised by deteriorating service quality and general regression.

It was under the MDC’s tenure that Chitungwiza residents first experienced water shortages, non-collection of refuse and deteriorating roads, among other challenges.

This was never experienced under Zanu PF’s watch. It was under the MDC that the town’s residents first experienced raw sewage freely flowing on Chitungwiza’s streets.

In the process of attempting to castigate Zanu PF, Sikhala exposed his party’s own failure in Chitungwiza.

Yes, when Chitungwiza was set up in the 1950s (Seke) and early 1960s (St Mary’s) the colonial authorities’ idea was to create a self-contained urban settlement that would assist in stemming the tide of rural to urban migration.

Even when the Chitungwiza Industrial Area was set up around 1970 by the then Tribal Trust Lands Development Corporation (TILCOR) through the TILCOR Act of 1968, it was meant to create jobs for the people of Chitungwiza so that the majority of the town’s residents would be employed in the town.

Over the years, the town was supposed to grow into a satellite city with all services and amenities of a modern city.

It was supposed to have its own city centre and its residents would not have to rename Old Mutual’s shopping centre in the town to Town Centre due to lack of one.

It is interesting that Sikhala pointed an accusatory finger at Government for not developing Chitungwiza, yet a number of companies at the Chitungwiza Industrial Area (which some continue to call TILCOR although this was replaced by ARDA in the early 1980s) are in place because of Government.

This was a deliberate policy to ensure that development was not concentrated in Harare only.

Such companies include Dairibord, Surface Wilmar and the Grain Marketing Board. Many will remember that when Cone Textiles closed at the end of 1994, Government worked hard to revive the company through the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) although the effort was affected by the ongoing economic challenges.

In the 20 years that the MDC has been in charge of Chitungwiza, the party has not lured even a single company to the town’s industrial area. The party’s councillors did not even learn from the fact that the closure of Cone Textiles marked the beginning of the municipality’s financial challenges as a large number of its residents were employed by the company and therefore, could no longer service their rates.

It never dawned on them that the financial health of the local authority depended on a sound manufacturing sector in the town. It never crossed their minds that it was also the municipality’s duty to promote investment in the town to create jobs for its residents.

When the last Zanu PF mayor, Joseph Macheka, was in charge from 1997 to 2002, he prioritised investment.

He ensured that the municipality’s public relations department also pushed for investments in the town apart from managing its relations with stakeholders.

He renamed the department to Public and Investor Relations Department.

The then incumbent at the time, Ms Muriel Zemura, discharged her mandate very well by ensuring that information on the available investment opportunities was readily available to stakeholders. Macheka’s departure from Chitungwiza in early 2002 marked the demise of the town’s investment thrust.

The only other time that the town attempted to meaningfully push for investment was during the tenure of Dr George Makunde as the Town Clerk.

He pushed for the construction of Muda Dam and waterworks to ensure water self-sufficiency for Chitungwiza.

He engaged funders such as the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) to ensure a lasting solution for Chitungwiza’s perennial water problems.

Dr Makunde also marketed available investment opportunities in the town like the development of Chaminuka cave, which is located south east of the town, into a tourism facility.

He was, however, haunted and hounded out of the municipality for fear that he would steal the thunder from the MDC-dominated Chitungwiza Town Council. His departure also marked the last time that the residents heard of the hope- raising Muda Dam project until when the Harare Provincial Development Co-ordinator, Mr Tafadzwa Muguti told attendees at the Chitungwiza civic centre construction ground breaking ceremony in October 2020 that Government would fund the project.

Since Chitungwiza was officially made a town on January 1 1978, Chitungwiza Municipality (then Chitungwiza Urban Council) has been operating from the buildings of a primary school in Zengeza 2 high density suburb.

Yes, the MDC councillors found this anomalous situation in place, but nothing and no one barred successive councils from presenting the Minister of Local Government with their own plans to construct the town’s own civic centre.

Sikhala should have been very ashamed to tweet about the anomaly when his party has been in charge of the town for over 20 years.