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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Manicaland Bureau
MUTARE City Council has earmarked $110 000 for a community-based storm-water drain clearing exercise following the onset of the rains. The programme, which started early this month, will run until December 31.

In an interview with The Herald last week, Mutare City Council public relations officer Mr Spren Mutiwi said council had so far engaged 192 workers from all the 19 wards in the city to work with municipal workers on the exercise. “This drain clearing exercise is an ongoing exercise that we have scaled up because of the rains,” he said. “We started a bit early this year, taking a cue from last season where we experienced some flooding.

“With the community-based storm drain clearing project, we derive our workforce from the communities to complement council’s permanent workforce deployed to the exercise.

“We believe that through community involvement, people take the issue of littering seriously. We wanted them to participate in the exercise to create a sense of ownership for cleaning the drains and avoid future littering of their surroundings.”

Mr Mutiwi said the community-based approach gives maximum service delivery as it involved members of the community who wanted to avoid flooding that might occur during the rain season. He said the decision to take a ward based approach to storm drain cleaning was taken in 2016 following the heavy rains that caused flooding in most parts of the city, adding that the threat of flooding had pushed council towards disaster preparedness, instead of taking reactionary measures after a disaster.

The exercise, Mr Mutiwi said, was an opportunity for council to create employment for the jobless members of the community.

“The programme targets mostly unemployed youths who are identified by their respective councillors to participate in the programme and earn themselves some money in the process,” he said.