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Dr Killer Zivhu

Herald Reporter
Female councillors from all rural district councils held their annual conference in Masvingo yesterday where they called for the quota system be extended to the lower structures of governance to ensure increased female representation in councils. The conference was organised by the Association of Rural District Councils of Zimbabwe (ARDCZ). Speaking after the conference, ARDCZ president Dr Killer Zivhu decried the low number of female councillors across the country.

He said to balance issues, female councillors were not supposed to be contested by males in next year’s harmonised elections. Dr Zivhu extended his appeal to all political parties to strive for gender parity in the selection of candidates who will contest to become councillors.

“We are appealing to the Zanu-PF Government to make sure that the quota system is expanded to cover the election of councillors because we want to avoid a situation where we will have a very low number of female councillors in the country, with men still being in the majority,’’ he said.

“Our appeal even to other political parties is that they must push for increased female representation in councils. All sitting female councillors should not be contested by males in next year’s elections. Let women contest against each other in a ward where there is a sitting female councillor.

“We are calling for the introduction of a quota system because female representation is still very low in our councils, but women have a big stake in the development of the country.” Dr Zivhu said it was disturbing to note that out of nearly 1 400 rural councillors in Zimbabwe, less than 200 were females.

“Female councillors are the best weapon to effect development, especially in rural communities,” he said. “There are many cases of child labour and abuse, rape, among other vices that are committed mainly against children and women. Female councillors will be the best to push for an end to such vices because they are also victims and they know how it feels for children to suffer and for women to suffer.”

Dr Zivhu appealed to First Lady Dr Amai Grace Mugabe to help in the push for increased female representation in councils, saying the Zanu-PF Women’s League national secretary was a proven proponent of women empowerment. “We know very well that the First Lady has a strong passion, particularly to empower women and one of the ways to empower them will be to instigate introduction of the quota system in the election of councillors in next year’s elections,’’ he said.

Dr Zivhu called for Government, through the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, to permit councils to buy motorbikes for councillors for them to be able to discharge their duties efficiently. ‘“Councillors should spearhead development in their wards by supervising and monitoring Government programmes at a local level, but most wards, especially in rural areas have a radius of up to 40 kilometres, so councillors need to be provided with motorbikes to improve mobility,” he said.

“They easily supervise Government implementation of programmes like Zim-Asset at their local levels if they are mobile.” Dr Zivhu urged councillors to spearhead the ongoing Biometric Voter Registration exercise in their communities by encouraging people to register as voters ahead of next year’s harmonised elections.