Harare council moves to help doctors buy luxury cars

The Harare City Council (HCC) has come under fire after proposing to facilitate loans for its doctors to purchase top-of-the-range vehicles, a move critics say is ill-timed as the city's health services struggle with staff shortages and deteriorating infrastructure.

The proposal has angered ratepayers who argue that priority should be given to improving service delivery at clinics and hospitals rather than supporting the acquisition of high-end vehicles. Residents say the city's healthcare system is already overstretched, with many facilities failing to meet growing demand.

The Harare Master Plan, developed by Development Studio Africa and adopted last year, revealed that primary healthcare centres are under-utilised, with patients bypassing them in favour of quaternary institutions such as Parirenyatwa and Sally Mugabe hospitals. The report highlighted declining service quality and structural weaknesses within the city's health system.

Harare mayor Jacob Mafume defended the initiative, saying the city faces a severe shortage of doctors, with only seven currently serving the municipality. He said the loan facility is meant to assist doctors with mobility, particularly during emergencies.

"Our doctors should be able to move from one point to another, including for emergencies," Mafume said. "We have facilitated loans for them to buy vehicles."

He stressed that council would not be purchasing the vehicles directly but merely facilitating access to financing. The doctors have already met acting finance director Godfrey Kusangaya to discuss modalities, and Kusangaya confirmed the meeting.

Mafume attributed the staffing crisis to brain drain and mounting pressure on existing personnel. He said Harare's 14 polyclinics deliver about 3 000 babies each month and attend to roughly 100 000 patients monthly.

"Our main worry is that we are nowhere near where we want to be, as we want more doctors, but we are going to fight to have more doctors," he said, adding that health workers are doing their best under difficult conditions.

However, the proposal has drawn sharp criticism from civic groups. Harare Residents Trust executive director Precious Shumba accused the council of failing to prioritise transparency and accountability.

"The City of Harare should be transparent in its procurement. The Harare Residents Trust has come to realise that corruption thrives in procurement, where proxies of key decision-makers secure contracts to supply goods and services at inflated prices. A closer examination of the vehicle costs will reveal this trend," Shumba said.

He argued that any improvements to employment conditions should apply across all 16 grades within council, rather than favouring specific groups.

"This discriminatory approach creates the misleading impression that the mayor is addressing a brain drain problem, when in reality the council is compromising equal treatment of workers," he said.

Shumba further warned that ratepayers' funds must not be used for political expediency and questioned whether the proposed loans were properly budgeted for.

"These ad hoc payouts and purchases of vehicles are unbudgeted for. This means the procurement is driven by corruption, incompetence and lack of planning," he said, adding that serious investment in doctors' welfare should be clearly reflected in the 2026 council budget.

The controversy comes as the City of Harare has reportedly struggled to meet salary obligations in recent months, at one point falling three months behind on payments to workers.