Councillors fear to lose jobs over political party ideas

Harare Residents Trust has said the political party aligned running of councils is going against individual's conscience  as Councillors fear to lose their position if they go against their party ideas.

The trust said the tragedy of the whipping system in running local authorities by political parties is hat even when one's conscience is saying otherwise, one just have to comply, otherwise one find self removed from the feeding trophy.

"Now that the Constitution provides for the recall of dissenting Councillors by political parties, the citizens are left at the mercy of manipulative party political systems which relegate service delivery issues to peripheral levels while pursuing their power games, using public resources available to local authorities," said the trust.

"It is high time that new measures be put in place to give citizens the power to recall under-performing elected representatives, especially Councillors. Without this legal power, the citizens will continue to be held at ransom by partisan councils which only pursue their parties' agendas without giving due recognition to citizens' priority issues. Incompetent councillors usually know how to play these cheap political games by aligning themselves with their powerful party heavyweights who protect them from being recalled by the party."

He said this makes citizens less important in the scheme of things as the councillors abuse their power and authority knowing that as long as they are in good books with their political party handlers at their party headquarters, they will be safe, hence will not pay much attention to what the citizens say to them.

"This must be changed to empower the citizens on this matter," said the trust.