CCC Gweru parly aspirant vows to improve service delivery

By Lewis Kuchineyi

Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) Gweru parliamentary aspirant Josiah Makombe has once elected to parliament he is going to push  for laws which will bring an improvement in service delivery in local authorities.

He said top of his priority once elected to parliament includes reintroduction of Executive Mayors posts, devolution as well as councillors welfare.   

The former Gweru Mayor said the scrapping of Executive Mayors posts in local authorities crippled councils as Mayors have been reduced to be ceremonial Mayors without any executive powers.

“I only come to council three times a month for the two committees that I sit in and then the full council and I am done. On every other day I am not there and it will be the managers doing the running around, this is a creation of statute and it says they (management) only bring their reports on the days that we sit as committees and on full council days,” he said.

He added that this environment sets up local authorities to fail through taking away their executive power and confining it to full council meetings only.

 “That’s the only place that we exercise executive authority. Imagine we sit once a month and yet residents expect service delivery every day,” he added.

The aspiring legislator promised to push for the reintroduction of the functions of the Executive Mayor into local authorities as way of improving the working environment for councillors as well as improving service delivery to residents.

Makombe said that the way senior management is employed and vetted by the local government makes them loyal to government and makes them arrogant to implement resolutions passed by councillors.

He said that this made the councillors an easy target when residents revolt against poor service delivery and they ended up throwing arrows at the wrong people.

“It’s deliberate to make sure that the people revolt against you, whenever they campaign, they point to our failures and say that they want to take over,” he added.

Makombe also promised to prioritise the issue of  devolution.

 “Real devolution is about power and authority, resources come later but the first thing to ask is if you are now the father, if yes, then you start looking into the welfare of your children. We haven’t seen devolution since the 2013 when we had a new constitution central government is still doing everything. Most developmental issues must be devolved to the people and come to the people at provincial or local level,” the said.

Makombe blames the deteriorating state of service delivery in most local authorities across the nation citing a lack of willingness from the central government to improve the working conditions for local authorities for them to thrive.

The aspiring legislator and current Ward 2 councillor said that his painful experiences at town house made him more knowledgeable on relevant legislation that needs to be enacted to improve the working environment for councillors as well as improving service delivery to residents.  

Makombe is in the race with the current sitting MP, Brian Dube of the MDC-T and Alec Mukwembi of ZANU PF for the Gweru Urban Constituency seat.