By Ashley Kondo
Zimbabwe’s local authorities, particularly city and town councils, have been found wanting in terms of quality services delivery.
In the same vein, the poor service delivery by most councils has largely been attributed to corruption and poor corporate governance practices by many.
For instance, in some, if not most cases, between 50 to 70 percent of revenue earned from monthly premiums by ratepayers has been footing remuneration costs of respective local authorities at the expense of service delivery.
In 2015, the Harare City Council (HCC)’s wage bill amounted to US$ 114,3 million, which constituted 33 percent of the city’s annual budget.
However, the city’s annual revenue collections for the year 2015 fell 17 percent below target amid defaults by ratepayers.
Noteworthy, most council revenue inflows end up falling short of the targeted collections and service delivery budget lines carry the deficit burden while salaries remain fixed.
City operations and projects have had to bore the brunt of this anomaly as they have had to do with the paltry resources that remained after salaries pay-outs.
Analysts have criticised the hefty salary tags for council employees which they have described as out of this world given the harsh economic conditions that have prevailed in the country over the past couple of years.
As if the exorbitant remuneration perks for employees have not been robbery enough on ratepayers’ contributions, there have been numerous reports about corruption by councils, including unprocedural awarding of tenders in return for kickbacks as well as inflating prices for personal gain.
This further drained local authorities of the fiscus intended for service delivery.
Efforts to contain the situation by the former Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Saviour Kasukuwere, were in vain as they resulted in fruitless labour legal disputes.
Two weeks back, Principal Director for Urban and Local Authorities in the Ministry of Local Government Public, Works and National Housing, Eric Jones, informed that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration, with the help of the World Bank, had introduced a new budgeting system for local authorities.
Under the new system, councils are expected to present programme-based budgets for approval by the Ministry.
Additionally, the new programme-based budgeting is premised on a broad framework of the 30:70 ratio in favour of service delivery although there are exceptions for some sectors such as health.
Therefore, technically, there would be a boost in service delivery which includes components such as water supply, sewer reticulation, waste collection, road maintenance and street lighting.
Lately, councils have been blamed for disease outbreaks such as typhoid and cholera owing to poor service delivery, including maintenance of sewer systems and the inability to supply clean water.
In September, the country experienced a cholera outbreak which claimed over 50 lives in Harare.
In Glenview suburb, investigations into the outbreak revealed that a borehole that was used by the community had been infested of the cholera bacteria as a result of burst sewer pipes.
Therefore, the recently introduced 30:70 ratio in favour of service delivery should a go a long way in making sure that such disease outbreaks are a thing of the past.
Furthermore, the programme-based budgetary system does not render room for hidden costs as was the case with past budget submissions which led to mismanagement of funds and graft.
Instead, it accords residents the opportunity to monitor council expenditure and implementation of programmes.
The new budgetary system comes at a time Government is putting in place a raft of measures to combat corruption and foster transparency and accountability in the public sector.
It is everyone’s hope that the move to introduce programme based budgeting for local authorities will restore sanity among councils and give residents insight into the operations of councils.
