BCC reassures residents on service delivery

THE Bulawayo City Council has reassured residents that it is working round the clock to ensure improvement of service delivery in the country's second largest city.

The local authority has in recent months been under attack from residents who have raised a red flag on the deteriorating state of service delivery in the city with sewer flowing in most high-density suburbs, more than 70 percent of the roads in a deplorable state and the city's failure to provide a constant supply of water.

Last week, councillors read the riot act to senior council officials over the deteriorating state of service delivery ordering the Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube, to submit a report on the under-performance of council's engineering department, which is led by Engineer Simela Dube.

As a response to the public outcry, Mr Dube last Tuesday convened a meeting between residents, represented by the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA), Eng Dube, Mayor, Councillor Solomon Mguni and the deputy mayor, Clr Mlandu Ncube in an attempt to reach a common ground.

In an interview with Sunday News yesterday, Mr Dube said the thrust of the meeting was to give residents an update on service delivery and also give them an appreciation on the challenges being faced by the local authority.

"There is nothing amiss about that meeting as from time to time we update and engage our key stakeholder, the residents. During the said meeting we gave them an update of key service delivery issues, chief among these being our water delivery situation. We assured them that this time, we will adhere to the schedule that we have set and most likely we will be getting rid of this water shedding well before the set date which we have given to residents, which is 15 March," said Mr Dube.

He said there was also a need for residents to fully appreciate the challenges being faced by the local authority that were inhibiting the provision of the satisfactory levels of service delivery.

"To be frank we know that we are behind in terms of a number of issues, like our workers' salaries, state of roads and even housing provision, therefore the meeting was also meant to have our residents appreciate this state of affairs.

"They key issue that is putting us in this position is money, where people are not actively paying their rates, of which we know it's a larger reflection of the country's economy. In Bulawayo, we are further disadvantaged by that our economy is largely informal hence with this lockdown a number of our residents have been left without any source of income thereby meaning they are failing to pay off their rates, which is subsequently affecting service delivery," said Mr Dube.

Commenting on the meeting, BPRA co-ordinator, Mr Emmanuel Ndlovu said their main talking points at the meeting was for councillors and senior management to set aside factional fights and work towards the development of the city.

"During the meeting, we got to understand what the city is doing in terms of actual service delivery but we implored them to prioritise service delivery and set aside issues to do with politics and factional fights, as these can derail service delivery in the city. We got an update on water delivery system and an explanation on the Flowserve pumps and the non-return valves which malfunctioned upon commissioning. But we also raised a number of issues as residents, this ranging from roads to the servicing of stands in the city," said Mr Ndlovu.