by Christopher Makaza

Harare City Council (HCC)`s just ended  pre-budget consultative meetings for the financial year ending 31 December 2019 has  been criticised by Harare residents who argue that the MDC led councillors do not consider residents` views and contributions towards local development.

 Kuwadzana residents who spoke to Harare Post said councillors do not convene meetings with residents to hear their concerns and that these so called pre-budget consultative meetings are only meant for the council officials to pocket money in form of allowances.

“For the past five years or so, these MDC councillors have never called for development meetings or even consultative meetings to hear our day to day challenges and our input towards the development of our area. They come towards election when they are in need of our vote and they vanish thereafter. These so called pre-budget consultative meetings will not bear any fruits. They will not implement any of our input. They are very corrupt and greedy, so it`s useless to hold such meetings,” said Mr Nyarugwe from Kuwadzana Extension.

“We hold these consultative meetings year after year but city fathers and the councillors continue to misuse funds from rate payers. They continue to recruit more people, their relatives for that matter yet they are failing to pay the already existing employees and deliver expected service to rate payers. They award themselves huge allowances which the council budget cannot sustain. We have raised this in previous meetings but nothing has changed,” he added.

The pre-budget consultative meeting convened by Glen Norah Councillor who is also the Mayor of Harare Mr Herbert Gomba was characterised by booing and unnecessary interjections.

The gathering appeared to have been prone to a certain political party and disregarded contributions made by their perceived opponents. Residents who are aligned to MDC wanted to have control of the proceedings denying perceived Zanu PF supporters a chance to air their views. Constant booing of other rate payers disrupted participation by other residents.

The MDC led HCC has failed to do justice to service delivery for a long time and continue to shoulder the blame on central government for their  poor administration and service delivery .