Gwanda gearing for Residents Association elections

Residents of Gwanda are gearing for the election of a substantive Residents Association scheduled for the middle of July.

Chairperson of the interim Residents Association Committee Mr Gilbert Dube told Bulawayo24 News that the term of office of the interim committee comes to an end at the end of June and so elections for the substantive committee will be held albeit with the interim committee still having several issues outstanding from those that it was mandated to carry out. According to Dube the interim committee could not complete most of its tasks due to several constraints which among others included the short time frame given and the slow response the committee was getting from the local Municipality in coming up with a working agreement.

The Interim committee which was set up at a meeting at the local Jahunda Hall at the beginning of December last year and mandated to run up to June this year was above all tasked with regularising the registration of the Association which was established in the early nineties before suffering a temporary halt along the way due to some logistical problems.

The interim committee was also mandated to strike working relations with all stakeholders in the town which included the local Municipality, Informal Traders, Civic Groups, NGOs, churches and other stakeholders in the town. The committee is also expected to have concluded the drafting of the Association's constitution which will be adopted at the elective general meeting set for middle of July.

Towards the election of the substantive committee, the interim committee is also expected to have completed conducting elections for ward residents subcommittees which according to Dube should have resumed about a month ago but will only be held in the last two weeks before election of the substantive committee as a result of the delayed working document with council.

"We really have battled in our operations in the six months that we have been in office because of delays and some unprecedented resistance we have encountered from the local authority. It took us a lot of time to come to a round table with council and discuss the working relation which even up to now have not been quite concluded as council has not hid to our numerous attempts to conclude the matter," said Dube.

The residents association and council appear not to be reaching any consensus as several meetings held by some councillors seemed to be portraying a picture of bad blood between the two groups. The councillors in their meetings appeared to be giving a negative attitude to their constituencies about the residents association clearly showing that the two groups have not come into an understanding on how they should work together.

In one meeting held in ward 9 of the town Ward Councillor Mr Thulani Moyo told residents of his ward that they must not recognise the residents association as it is only coming into the fore after ZANU PF swept an 80% majority in council and so the association should be viewed as a pressure group of opposition parties to fight against ZANU PF developmental projects.

"Ask yourself why this Residents Association thing is being talked about now when ZANU PF has won all the wards in the town. You must not recognise it until I personally come back to you and tell you if it is authentic or not and who you should put in the committee because if you look at the current group of people in the committee it's all people from opposition parties out to fight us and they must be treated as such," he said in a meeting early this year.

In a similar meeting councillor for Ward 4 Mr Mduduzi Malaba is reported to have said his ward will not hold ward residents association election but he will use his self appointed ward committee as the residents association committee to avoid including members of opposition parties into the committee.

"You are not going to elect a new committee as a ward; we are going to use the ward committee that I am already working with as the ward residents committee to avoid bringing in people with different agendas and making it difficult for me to work with them."

According to Mr Dube his committee failed to have a number of meetings that they had scheduled with the residents as the Police Internal Security Intelligence (PISI) officers could not sanction the meetings without a corresponding approval of the meetings from council of which council was taking too long or ignoring the requests to sit and consider the proposed meetings.

"We had a clash of meetings early in the year with one councillor after our meeting had been cleared by the police and the councillor also called for a meeting on the same day at the same venue which both us and the police were not aware of resulting in a little skirmish of which now the police want us to have clearance from council before they can sanction our meetings which really shouldn't be the case. At the same time council is taking its precious time to confirm the meetings making it impossible for us to hold our meetings with the residents," said Dube.

He however insisted that besides the constraints the interim committee managed to complete a draft constitution for the Association which will be presented for residents' approval at the elective congress in July. The committee also managed to establish working relations with other urban centres residents association and confirmed its affiliation with the National Residents Association body.

Dube insisted that his committee will make sure that all wards meet before the end of the term of the interim committee and elect their ward committees in time for the substantive committee elections.

"We are pushing very hard to make sure that the police sanction our meetings and to make sure that all councillors are available at the ward elections to witness the election of the committees they will work with. We don't want to extend our term of office without the mandate of the residents and so we really have to make sure that the general meeting is held as set out and a substantive committee set up with all residents present."

Mr Dube concluded by inviting all residents of the town to attend the meetings that will be called by the residents committee so that the issue of the association is cleared to everyone concerned in the town. Mr Dube emphasised on the need for residents not to politicise the issue of the residents committee as it was purely a civic matter and not a political one. Dube urged residents to rise above their political affiliation and elect their representations on merit and not political bias.

"We would like to urge all the residents of Gwanda to attend the meetings when they are called and not view this as a political matter but a very civic one which should rise above everyone's political affiliation. We agreed with council that we are both going to appeal to residents and particularly political parties not to politicise this exercise and allow people to choose freely those who they feel will genuinely guard the interests of the residents in various spectrum," said Mr Dube.

The current interim committee was chaired by Mr Dube who is a lecturer at the local JM Poly technical College deputised by Mr Obert Nkomo a long-time serving member of the previous residents association. Secretary is Mrs Sihle Senderayi also employed at the college. The committee also has in its structure Mr Fungai Mpofu the personal assistant to the Gwanda Central Member of Parliament as organising secretary and Mr Bekezela Maduma Fuzwayo as its spokesperson.