Source: Zimbo guns for US mayorship – NewsDay Zimbabwe
BY CHRIS MAHOVE
A ZIMBABWEAN-BORN businessman is running for mayorship in Allentown City in the United States.
Solomon Tembo, who was born in Kadoma, will contest against two other candidates, a Cuban and a Spaniard in the mayoral election slated for November 2.
The City of Allentown is home to 127 000 people, mainly whites, followed by Hispanics and then blacks.
Tembo is promising the electorate bountiful opportunities and shared prosperity for all through economic growth, job creation, service delivery as well as empowered communities and neighbourhoods.
“The city needs someone who can make the unequivocal pledge and commitment to create good-paying jobs while attracting new investment capital into the city for its development and revitalisation,” he told NewsDay Weekend from his base.
He said he would work to make housing more affordable and improve service delivery while rehabilitating the city’s crumbling infrastructure.
He said the poor would be protected by ensuring that taxpayers’ money is spent responsibly and ensuring that the city’s savings were used to provide services for the most vulnerable groups.
“We will employ stringent debt management and vigorous financial oversight to create savings to advance our progressive agenda to strengthen education, health care and environmental protection,” he said.
Tembo also promised to crack down on corruption, crime and drug addiction as well as maintain law and order as a way of providing security to the community.
The justice system, he said, would be reformed to make it fair and balanced.
Tembo was born in Kadoma to Solomon Evaristo Tembo, the first black councillor in the then Gatooma in 1978.
The aspiring mayor worked at Gateway International Exchange before moving to the United States in 1994 to pursue further studies. He went to Kutztown University of Pennsylvania where he studied business.
He worked as a hotel manager for Sheraton, Hilton and Crown Plaza before starting his own business empire which includes a tax consulting office, a transport company and a home care centre which he runs with two other partners.
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COMMENTS
Promises sound all great and wonderful, but they typically fall through when the dust settles and the new mayor finds himself in charge of spending other people’s hard-earned money. They might be able to create a successful business, but when they enter such a public office, they seem to think they’re running a charity with very deep pockets… much of which finds itself into their own pockets.
I’m in favor of public offices being paid a limited stipend and limited perks, with full financial disclosures. Politics should be a public service, not a career.