In a veiled admission of failure, Harare’s new Mayor
Councillor Jacob Mafume said the capital was behind in terms of development and
was riddled with corruption.
The MDC has been in charge of Harare since 2000, but the
city is in a deplorable state regarding refuse collection, water provision and
road network.
Clr Mafume suggested Harare should have been using digital
platforms to improve service delivery, but it remained stuck in traditional
methods.
In an interview with Zimpapers Television Network (ZTN) on
Monday, Clr Mafume said: “Harare has lost a number of decades in terms of being
an interactive and a digital city. It is in many ways still based on paper and
analogue; what we need is a city that is able to talk to its residents and the
residents talk to it on a digital platform.
“There are many things that should happen. We are still
having people queuing to pay their rates and bills at a central point, that
should not be happening in this century. This should be done on a digital
interface.
“We are still having difficulties for services being
reported, burst pipes still being reported on an analogue basis (when) they
should be done by GPS and so forth.”
Clr Mafume said there were no digital frameworks to
identify even the mapping of properties in Harare, and council relied on
“management by walking”, which he said “should not be the way it should be”.
“We should have interactive systems, the streets should
talk to you, street lights should talk to you, your water should talk to you,”
he said.
Asked about his top priorities to revive service delivery,
Clr Mafume did not mince his words, saying bickering in the opposition, which
led to the recall of fellow councillors, including former mayor Herbert Gomba
were partly to blame for poor services.
“Politics has interfered, remember the last mayor was taken
out not because of any other thing except the politics,” he said.
Clr Mafume was non-committal on his stance against the
deep-rooted corruption in council.
He said the entire country was grappling with corruption,
adding that there should be no witch-hunting in the fight against the scourge.
Clr Mafume proposed that corruption could be reduced by
minimising human interaction by way of automating systems.
On land scandals, he said the procedures were there and
should be followed, particularly that any available pieces of land be
advertised.
“I can tell you that we advertised the Budiriro CABS Scheme
and people took it and there are still some pieces of the Budiriro Scheme that
are still to be taken up because it’s transparent and the prices are there,” he
said.
“We have got how you obtain it and so forth and that is the
standard. We need to produce market value and rent-seeking behaviour comes when
something is being sold for less than the market value and that creates a
problem.” Herald
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