‘Zanu PF centralisation of power stifling service delivery’

Source: ‘Zanu PF centralisation of power stifling service delivery’ – NewsDay Zimbabwe October 15, 2016

MDC-T co-vice president Elias Mudzuri has urged Zimbabweans to adhere to standards and international best practice of providing basic resources to people and blamed Zanu PF government’s centralisation of local governance for the serious service delivery challenges facing the country.

By Albert Masaka

In a document titled Service Delivery Challenges in Zimbabwe: Central Government Interference In Local Authorities, Mudzuri said principles such as client focus, professionalism, transparency, accountability, among others, had seen some of the best success stories in the world in service delivery.

“Zanu PF government policies, laws and service delivery interventions are crafted at the centre, with no participation and non-involvement of the people/clients.

“There is absence of a grievance channelling/communication mechanism through which citizens can contribute towards their own development,” he said, citing the introduction of Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016, which sparked countrywide riots recently, the document read.

Mudzuri also blasted politicisation of services such as the populist, selective and partisan allocation of housing stands by successive local government ministers.

“Kasukuwere is parcelling out unserviced stands on undesignated land and without council plans to Zanu PF youths,” he said.

Mudzuri said service delivery can effectively be done by local authorities and this can only be achieved by decentralisation through the constitutional provision on devolution.

“However, despite this, central government has shown an unwillingness to decentralise and instead has moved towards recentralisation of power and functions after the 1980s experiment,” he said.

The legal framework, which Zanu PF refuses to align with the Constitution, forces local authorities to operate according to a strict ultra vires doctrine, which points towards the ‘omnipresence’ of central government in the actual operational discharge of local authority service delivery functions.”

Mudzuri said Zanu PF government’s departure from the decentralisation of the 1980’s to recentralisation came as a way to neutralise control of urban councils falling under opposition MDC after 2000.

“Without any shame, successive Ministers of Local Government have removed and suspended MDC elected officials,” he said.

Mudzuri also said the recently passed Local Government Laws Amendment number 8 of 2016 was crafted by Kasukuwere “specifically to enable Zanu PF to arbitrarily remove MDC-T Harare mayor Bernard Manyenyeni and Bulawayo councillors — disrupts and adversely affects service delivery”.

Zanu PF, Mudzuri said, instead has preferred to appoint Provincial and Metropolitan Affairs ministers to spearhead development in contravention of the Constitution, which seeks to establish Provincial Councils consisting of elected officials.

The latter arrangement is more responsive and accountable to the people while the former is accountable to the appointing office, he said.

Mudzuri also said social safety nets such as food aid, agriculture input schemes and the Beam scheme were allocated in a partisan manner in favour of Zanu PF members as way to punish MDC-T supporters.