'Consult residents,' Gwanda councillors urged

So the Municipality of our beloved Gwanda believes that by going out to invite Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Cde Obert Mpofu to come and buy a stand(s) already
allocated or reserved for other potential investors in the town to raise a quick buck is a solution to the town's water and financial problems? Is this not tantamount to auctioning the town to the rich and famous at the expense of the poor?

For a fact Gwanda's water problems are not because there is no water in the supply dams nor lack of infrastructure to purify the water but purely an administrative bungle that needs a sober
administrative long-term solution. If the media reports coming through are true that the land (stand) is being sold for below market value then we are not solving anything but shooting ourselves
on the feet.

Basic social economics tells us that if you find someone disposing off their assets to settle a debt then they are in deep trouble and on a downward slide. Council shall always owe ZINWA for water and
residents shall always owe council for the same water so how much more of our land is going to be disposed off to the rich to bring short term reprieve to a long term problem? In the end it won't be a surprise when we find one person owning the town.

When I first saw the headline "Obert Mpofu to rescue Gwanda" what came to my mind was here is a great man who has through his Allied Banking Group advanced Council with a loan albeit with
council's weak credit rating. OR I thought, may be he has managed to use his political might to bring the Ministry of water (and ZINWA) and the Ministry of Local Government to agree on a way forward to get ZINWA to supply Gwanda with water. When I read the story I was extremely disappointed. Council agreed to repossess a stand from Nyaradzo Funeral an equal investor with Cde Mpofu and offered it to him for quick money!!!! I asked myself is this really a rescue package or undue influence for personal enrichment? Was there no other means the respected Hon Minister would have offered to help rescue council with, not the "zuza lami ngizuze" way that I see here?

I have always told my friends who are Councillors in the town that being elected into council is a civic responsibility. This means that councillors do not work or think FOR us the residents but they work and think WITH us the residents. Everyone in Gwanda has noted the water and financial problems Council is experiencing and we all know the major contributing factor was the cancellation
of debts we owed council. That being the case as a resident of the town I don't understand how council would then want to take a burden that they did not directly create into their own shoulders and not come back and consult us the stakeholders and beneficiaries of the cancelled debts.

I suggested to some councillors shortly after the cancellation of the debts and the subsequent "landslide victory" in the elections that they call us residents for meetings to discuss a way forward as
there was no way Gwanda Municipality was going to recover financially from the cancellation of the debts. The Council cancelled a whooping $3.5 million for the residents and of this council was on an average collection rate of 58% and so keeping abreast as reported in the media. So literally council lost $2 million just at a click, there was no way it would have recovered quickly.

My suggestion to council was call us residents for a meeting to discuss this water crisis, explain the situation to us and then make an honest request for every home to pay just $5 to council of the cancelled debts. With +/-50 000 properties in Gwanda, council would have had a $250 000 starting point after the debt cancellation. With that money council would have managed to pay the $90 000 that ZINWA needed to continue pumping water. Workers would have got their wages, and us residents would have had a clearer understanding of council's woes and developed a culture of paying. Going around with a loud speaker and threatening residents with water disconnection and demanding payments will never get the results council want but more resistance from the residents. Instead of calling people to ward meetings and ordering them to gather up litter some of which even up to now lies uncollected, council should have called us to discuss the water problem and how we as residents would contribute to financial recovery of council.

(When is Council taking over the water treatment plant from ZINWA anyway? 10 years talking about the same thing shuwa shuwa!!!)