Devolution gets impetus
“TODAY we know that centralisation and big bureaucracies have not, as promised, been the answer for promoting better opportunities for society,” former Mexican president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, once said.
Governance and public service experts have often argued for decentralisation as a key enabler for inclusive development, particularly for developing countries.
Development in Zimbabwe has largely been skewed, even before independence, owing to the centralisation of most development agencies in Harare and failure to involve communities to manage their own affairs.
The recent launch of the Devolution and Decentralisation Policy gave the clearest signal yet of a shift to a new devolved structure, which involves the transfer of local governance to communities.
President Mnangagwa said the policy was a sign of “deep commitment by my Government, to implement devolution, as enshrined in the Constitution and in Vision 2030”.
“The policy on devolution and decentralisation is one of the major anchors of our unity which encompasses inclusive development. A major objective of the policy is to promote in Zimbabwe sustainable, representative, accountable, participatory, inclusive governance and socio-economic development,” he said.
“The objective for devolving power to sub-national structures of a reconfigured Zimbabwean State is to enable a faster, efficient and effective response to challenges of the delivery of public services, development, democracy, as well as the imperative of sustaining national unity and peace.”
At the centre of the policy lies inclusive development that is driven by local communities through a bottom-up approach, with central Government playing a largely supervisory role.
The policy envisages to hand over operational autonomy to provincial and metropolitan councils, including local authorities, which will soon be legislated into law.
Under this new dispensation, three tiers of Government — national Government, provincial and metropolitan councils, and local authorities — will be created.
“Provincial and metropolitan councils, and local authorities will have operational autonomy in compliance with the country’s Constitution, relevant Acts of Parliament and the unitary character of the State,” reads the policy document.
“In this regard, the Devolution and Decentralisation Policy delegates defined central Government powers down to lower tiers and levels of Government.”
The policy seeks to empower local authorities to make decisions which previously required authorisation by officials at provincial and ministry head offices in Harare, thereby ensuring responsiveness and efficiency.
Other responsibilities such as the maintenance of rural roads will no longer be overseen by central Government but will be given to rural councils. To ensure citizen participation, Government intends to implement devolution through a broad-based and inclusive approach that will account for participation of citizens and civil society.
A complex fiscal distribution formula will be developed to ensure that each region receives a share of funding from Treasury that is commensurate with its needs.
Reads the policy: “The undertaking of appropriate policy frameworks and legal reforms will anchor devolution policy implementation to sub-national tiers of Government underwritten by commensurate amounts of fiscal disbursements to local authorities.
“This will entail developing a complex fiscal distribution formulae, designed to achieve an equitable development status in all sub-national tiers of Government.
‘‘Already, Treasury has begun distribution of not less than 5 percent of collected revenues to eligible sub-national tiers of Government.
“Development of an equitable fiscal distribution formulae is an imperative which is both complex and politically sensitive in the quest for developing consensus towards implementation of a devolution policy which will create an equitable and balanced economic growth outcomes across all regions. Such a formulae will create an evidence-based methodology for skewing distribution of devolution funds in favour of less developed regions.”
The devolved tiers of Government will have five broad roles: planning and implementing social and economic development activities; coordinating and implementing Government programmes; planning and implementing measures for the conservation, improvement and management of natural resources; promoting tourism and developing facilities for that purpose; and monitoring and evaluating the use of resources.
A Cabinet Committee on Devolution and Development of Local Authorities (DDPLAC) will be constituted to monitor implementation of devolution processes and submit periodic reports to Cabinet.
The sub-national tiers of Government will use the Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation to ensure progress of developmental work.
Critically, all local authorities will be required to draw and implement local development plans tailor-made for their jurisdiction but drawn from national development plans.
“Notably, it is a requirement that local authorities exercising devolved powers should take into account national development plans in crafting their own local development plans. Furthermore, such a dispensation will encourage intra-local authorities cooperation to achieve higher economies of scale in plan implementation outcomes.”
The policy accounts for other regulatory issues such as oversight by central Government, budgeting, auditing, revenue utilisation, financial reporting and investment, among others.