MARTIN MAWAYA
GWERU-Local authorities in Zimbabwe have for years been reeling under an array of challenges that gave birth to poor service delivery.
They are entangled with challenges emanating from poor funding streams, lack of priority settings, gaps in policy framework as well as intellectual bankruptcy on the part of elected officials.
Resultantly, citizens continue to face the brunt of poor service provision.
This trend becomes a living nightmare for residents as they are grappling with poor water delivery, uncollected garbage and poor budget formulation process.
However, in a bid to address the intricacies that are contributing to the diminishing service provision in the country, the central government recently approved principles of the Rural District Councils Amendment Bill, to have people of good standing in councillorship position.
There will also be amendments to the Urban Councils Act and the Regional Town and Country Planning Act whose objective is to align them with the constitution.
The proposed amendments will among other things introduce minimum qualifications for councilors, as the current laws governing local authorities are silent on educational credentials for councillors.
In the Midlands Province, local government experts and residents associations commended the move as a panacea to perennial challenges haunting the local government sector.
They told the Midweek Watch that citizens have been concerned about compendium of issues affecting councils due to lack of skills and capacity by officials elected to run local authorities.
Hence, minimum qualifications for councilors is well thought and a robust strategy towards improving competence and service delivery.
Midlands State University lecturer in the department of governance and public management, Kudzai Matsika says the clause to add minimum qualifications for councilors was long overdue, as the prototype of government needs people with skills to run it.
“There is need to have people with certain skills set which has always been lacking in local authorities. Councilors are basically managers for local authorities and the people they then manage who are the administrators, they always taken advantage of the lack of education of these councilors by giving them very technocratic paper work and they just rubber stamp because they don’t know the implications of the things that they approve,” she said.
She said the envisaged amendments are in the best interests of residents and government as they ensure that the local authorities are run better, more efficiently and more effectively.
Matsika however pointed out that there is need to strike a balance between education and leadership skills as some people are educated to a degree level but lack wisdom to lead.
“There are some people that are educated but are ignorant and that can pose a danger because they can be very passive when it comes to local authority business which probably won’t benefit the society at the end of the day. Some people are not leaders by nature,” said Matsika.
The local government lecturer also urged political parties to do a thorough vetting process for their candidates before seconding them to run for office, to see if the person is of good standing.
She also highlighted the need to look at the resources and bank balances of aspiring councilors before they are nominated o contest.
Charles Mazorodze, director of Gweru Residents Forum (GRF), said councilors should be on top of the game, hence minimum qualifications are very vital in terms of being able to analyze issues and bringing in new dimension in local government sector.
He said the local government sector needs new thinking and councilors who understand the scope of service delivery trajectory.
“Councilors are policy makers who should be in a position to make robust policies and also analyze different types of documents that are provided by managers to make sound decisions on behalf of citizens.
“Councilors should have a basic understanding of various components of what service delivery entails and this will go a long way in improving their overarching oversight role within council chambers,” said GRF Director.
He said residents have witnessed corrupt activities the city managers have committed without being checked as a result of weak capacity to analyze documents by councilors.
Mazorodze added that threshold of leadership wherein qualifications and competences remain important in the fulfillment of service delivery within local authority facets.
Meanwhile, Gweru Residents and Ratepayers Association (GRRA) director Cornilia Selipiwe said the proposal to have tertiary qualification as a minimum qualification for councilors is atrocious, “elitist, prohibitive and discriminatory”.
He said the Ordinary level qualification is an ideal minimum requirement for councillorship position as most people can not afford to go to tertiary education as it is too expensive in the country.
Other analysts said having a tertiary qualification is not a pre requisite for good leadership and some of courses being offered in the country are of no use at all in real life situations.
They argued that if councillors should have tertiary qualifications the same should apply to all levels of leadership including the head of state.
“What this country requires is not strong tertiary qualifications, we need strong institutions from local level leadership to the highest office in the country in simple terms the country requires strong institutions not strong men,” said Edmore Marima, former pioneer Junior Mayor for Gweru City Council in 1993 and Bikita East Member of Parliament from 2008 to 2013.
