Review

Harare city council service delivery gone to the dogs (2000 – 14)

Associate Professor Dr. Silas Luthingo Rusvingo

Great Zimbabwe University, Masvingo, Zimbabwe in the Accounting and Information Systems Department, Faculty of Commerce

E-mail: srusvingo@yahoo.com; Tel.: +263 772 410 607

Accepted December 31, 2014

Abstract

The worst that has been said about the Harare City Council (HCC) service delivery is that it is now worse than a dog’s breakfast. The reasons invariably cited for the catastrophic decline in HCC service delivery are that the Harare water and sanitation services are so shambolic there are places in Harare without adequate water and sanitation services for up to 12 months to spark fears of another Cholera outbreak similar to the 2008-9 Budiriro Cholera outbreaks which killed more than 4000 people in less than one year. The city in recent years came under fire over its poor storm water drainage system which is responsible for flooding each time there are heavy rains in Harare. People have lost their relatives to flash floods in Harare. The 600 kilometer Harare road network is littered with crater-like potholes which are now a permanent feature of the road network for lack of resources to repair them. Open spaces and road verges are always overgrown with tall grass to compromise residents’ security during both day and night. And for want of security at night Harare residents have also lost relatives to night muggers taking cover in the tall and uncut grass. Public street lighting in all areas in Harare is non-existent for not only lack of resources to install public lighting but due to a perennial shortage of electricity countrywide where rolling blackouts are a result of a mismatch between power demand and supply. To expose the catastrophic decline in service delivery the Author, a former employee of the Harare City Council for 30 years at senior level will carry out the relevant and related Literature Review and Research Methodology involving the private media (Private media in Zimbabwe comprises of two prominent dailies circulating in Harare which are the Newsday and Daily News. On the weeklies the Standard, Financial Gazette and the Zimbabwe Independent newspapers are the most prominent circulating in Harare. Unlike the public media in Zimbabwe the private media is famous for saying it as it is on the ground without fear, favor or prejudice. Whereas the public media in Zimbabwe such as the Herald and the Sunday Mail, owned by the government are notorious for not stating the truth but propaganda which the paranoid ZANU PF government of His Excellence President Mugabe wants to hear and not what the people should be told. For this reason many people flock to the private media where the editorial policy is balanced reporting) in Zimbabwe which is being done for strategic reasons to be explained later in the relevant footnote to the main text. With the Research Findings now exposed and discussed the Author will then proceed to compile the Paper Summary, Conclusion and Recommendation to wind up the discourse in this Paper.

Keywords: Harare City Council, service delivery, dogs, breakfast, catastrophic and decline