Harare, an epitome of poor service delivery

Poor service delivery has become the hallmark of the majority of local authorities with residents succumbing to dirty water, irreparable roads and dilapidated infrastructure.

Consumers attribute this poor service to institutional inefficiencies with misplaced priorities, corruption and flawed procurement procedures being some of the major contributory factors.

With sewerage burst after burst, mountains of uncollected refuse and potholed roads, Harare is a far cry from being the world class city that it targets to be by year 2020.

The capital city has become the epitome of poor service delivery and several other local authorities are now following in the same trap.

Harare Residents Trust director Mr Precious Shumba said service delivery by the councils leaves a lot to be desired citing many contributory factors such as politics and flawed procurement procedures.

Chartered Institute of Customer Relationship Management executive director Dr Mthokozisi Nkosi said the honest rate payers bear the brunt of the poor services by local authorities.

Optimism remains though that with the new dispensation and enactment of the public procurement and disposal of assets act cronyism in the awarding of lucrative tenders, buying broken down machines and inflating product prices will be a thing of the past with customers getting value for their money.