IN yesterday’s edition of NewsDay, we carried a story on urban and rural councils officials who were hectored by their mother body to attend a cooking competition co-organised by First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa.
This came after a letter from the Urban Council Association of Zimbabwe (Ucaz) invited town clerks, secretaries, mayors and chairpersons to the cook-out competition and nhanga/gota programme and the ground-breaking ceremony which was held from July 26 to 28 in Victoria Falls.
Most local authorities have been under the spotlight for poor service delivery at a time when officials have gained notoriety for attending endless meetings to pick up allowances.
In most urban areas, service delivery has been at its lowest ebb with burst water pipes unattended, effluent flowing in towns and cities and garbage piling up uncollected.
Some residents have not seen water coming out of their taps in years and are forced to turn to unprotected wells for survival, amid fears of outbreaks of communicable diseases such as cholera and typhoid.
Zimbabwe is coming out of a cholera outbreak which recorded 34 550 suspected cases, 4 221 confirmed cases and 33 831 recoveries.
Most roads have not been repaired and storm drains are filled with rubbish. Cities and towns are slowly turning into villages with the exodus of companies from the central business districts to suburbs outside town, signalling the prevailing decay.
The billing system in some councils is shambolic that residents struggle to get bills at the end of each month.
Ratepayers have been forced to pay estimated bills which means councils may not be getting what they are supposed to get. This impacts negatively on service delivery.
With such a background of declining service delivery, it comes as a shock for ratepayers to be expected to foot the bill for council officials attending a cook-out competition.
As the umbrella body of councils, we expect Ucaz to promote professionalism within its members so that service delivery is given the priority it deserves.
This entails prioritising service delivery and putting a stop to endless and meaningless meetings that have nothing to do with service delivery, but everything to do with lining the pockets of officials.
The association should be at the forefront in advocating the cause of ratepayers otherwise it will be dismissed as a political outfit masquerading as an association of councils.
Residents’ associations and the Local Government ministry must put a stop to this madness.
It appears officials at councils are bent on amassing as much wealth as possible and they see their positions as avenues to fatten their wallet.
