Staff Reporter

Harare Residents Trust (HRT) has lambasted the opposition party Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC) councilors for spending the rate payers’ money on conferences while the Harare Metropolitan City continues to run dry.

Speaking through a statement, the HRT said that the CCC Councillors continued to organize workshops in places such as Victoria Falls despite the life threatening water shortages.

“Despite the life threatening water shortages and claims of low revenue collections, City of Harare management and councilors are taking turns to organize workshops in Victoria Falls, Masvingo, Mutare, Kadoma and in Bulawayo where they pay each participant huge amounts in allowances plus fuel coupons. This shows that the water crisis is not a priority to the council policymakers and management,” said the HRT.

HRT said that Councillors had a duty to communicate to the resident the state of their areas and what steps are taken to address their situations.

“Residents have become desperate. Water is life. Councillors and management have a duty to explain and justify what is happening to the residents as part of fulfilling their obligations to provide information to members of the public.

“The most frightening part is that Budiriro and Glen View suburbs which were the epicenter of the cholera outbreak in 2008-2009 have had inconsistent water supplies,” said HRT.

Meanwhile, the HRT has called on the Government to intervene as they had done before being guided by the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

“In light of the widespread shortages of council water, the HRT calls on the Government to urgently intervene as they have done before on human capital and policymaking issues at Town House. The Government`s intervention should be guided by the Constitution of Zimbabwe which recognizes the oversight role of the national Government over local authorities.

CCC Councilors` history of spending tax payers’ money dates back from the time when it was under the MDC. In 2019, four Bulawayo MDC Councillors were exposed after being allegedly pampered by a Harare based parking systems management company in a five-star Harare hotel among other goodies offered by the company.