by Christopher Makaza
The governance structures proposed by the Devolution and Decentralization policy will go a long way in enhancing local governance, decision making and promote the rapid development of local economies through leveraging of local resources to fund specific development programmes and priorities, a senior Government official said.
Presenting the Devolution and Decentralization policy which was approved by Cabinet as part of the National Development Strategy (2020-2025) formulation process, during the 25th Post Cabinet Press Briefing yesterday, Finance and Economic Development Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube highlighted that the policy established the necessary conditions for Provincial and Rural District Councils as well as other lower-tier governance and administrative structures to exercise devolved powers. He added that contributions from provincial and district sectors would accomplish Vision 2030 requirements for the respective provinces and districts.
"Contributions from provincial and district sectors encapsulated in Provincial Economic Development plans will accomplish the vision 2030 requirement for Provincial and District Gross Domestic Product (GDP) values and their contribution to the National GDP to be specified in the country's economic indicators.
"In essence therefore, the National GDP will be the sum total of the Provincial GDPs. Most notably the Devolution and Decentralization Policy ensures a participative bottom-up approach to development from village, ward, district and provincial levels to the national level,” said the Minister.
Professor Mthuli highlighted that in accordance with Section 264 sub Section 2 of the Constitution, the Devolution and Decentralization Policy sought to achieve the facilitation of democratic participation of people in making decisions that would affect them, promotion of good governance, maintenance of Zimbabwe as a single and peaceful State and enhancement of citizens participation in the management of local affairs and development among other objectives.
Meanwhile, the Minister said that the current five percent of fiscal revenue being availed to the sub-national tiers was subject to Programme-based funding requirements, which were being applied to central government entities by Treasury. He added that the area programmes and projects were already being funded from the fiscal revenue stream.
The Minister went on to reveal that the empowered sub-national entities would be supervised through policies and acts of Parliament which are consistent with the Constitution.
Meanwhile, the concept of Devolution has already started bearing fruits as an assortment of projects from construction of dams, roads, clinics, schools and boreholes among others are already being implemented and are expected to transform the rural areas.
Development projects are currently underway countrywide, as provinces use the ZWL$2.93 billion set aside for devolution in the 2020 National budget.
Most RDCs have since embraced the devolution agenda and are utilizing the funds to increase the number of primary health care centres and drilling boreholes.
In Matabeleland North province, some of the major projects funded by the 2019 devolution money included rehabilitation of the Bulawayo-Nkayi and Bulawayo-Tsholotsho roads as well as the Gwai-Shangani Dam.
Most local authorities in Masvingo province used their money to construct clinics and schools.
Local authorities such as Zvishavane Town Council, Zvimba Rural District Council and Beitbridge Municipality among many others used their allocation to purchase road rehabilitation and refuse collection equipment.
Provinces have been urged by the Government to make use of investment opportunities found in their areas, like mining, livestock production, tourism, manufacturing, transport and logistics among others to transform their areas.
