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Harare City Council never ceases to amaze us. It is just waking up from its deep slumber to find corporates have erected illegal billboards. Talk of sleeping on the wheel, then the council gets the top prize. It is never on top of the situation, but seems to take pride in always being reactive. The erection of billboards happened right under the council’s nose and how it missed the very big billboards that were being illegally erected boggles the mind.

Council has a rich history of procrastination when it comes to decision making and the billboards issue is one example of how not to run a city. A council that is run by competent people would have, a long time ago, discovered that many illegal billboards had been erected. It employs quite a big workforce, some of whom are tasked with overseeing adherence to council by-laws and one really wonders how and why the corporates were left to erect the billboards in the first place.

Now council has started pulling down the billboards and the question that demands an answer is: at whose cost are the billboards being pulled down? Obviously, council is paying for the exercise, although they want us to believe otherwise, pouring ratepayers’ money into something that could have been avoided had council not gone to sleep. It would have cost council a negligible amount of money stopping the illegal billboards than it will now cost pulling them down. Talk of someone benefiting from the ineptitude!

Council workers are spending valuable time pulling down billboards instead of engaging in work that improves service delivery, someone really needs to answer for this. It is the duty of the department responsible for the image of the city that should make sure no such billboards are erected illegally, in the first place and take immediate remedial action.

We have seen this kind of reactive behaviour from council in the past and we are not exactly surprised. Council saw few vendors selling their wares on pavements and streets in the city and did not take action until the whole city became a mess with thousands of vendors on pavements and streets. That is when it started talking about enlisting the support of ZRP and other law enforcement agents yet it could have nipped the problem in the bud in the early stages.

There have been illegal construction of houses in some parts of Harare that council has turned a blind eye to. It has left residents building the houses only to decide the construction is illegal when the houses have been completed. We have seen some houses being destroyed by council because the land they are built on is council land yet they saw construction taking place and could have stopped people building the houses.

We want to urge council to be very proactive and stop illegal activities of whatever sort in their infancy stage. Council must stop sleeping on the job, but ensure they perform the duties they are paid for — to make sure the city by-laws are adhered to and that the city is always clean. Having said this, we also find the behaviour of some corporates hard to understand. We do not expect corporates to be erecting illegal billboards. They should abide by the laws and always seek approval for the erection of the advertising billboards. This is what we expect of responsible citizens.

They want to operate in a clean environment and so they should not be irresponsible to the extent of flouting regulations. They are the biggest beneficiaries of a clean city and they should always work hard towards ensuring the city remains as such.