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Prince Mukuna and Nokutenda Chiyangwa
Harare Residents Trust (HRT) is urging the newly-elected MDC-Alliance councillors to represent the interests of the ratepayers, saying the previous crop of councillors in the MDC-T run council failed to deliver basic services to residents.

Speaking to The Herald yesterday, HRT director Mr Precious Shumba said the newly-elected councillors should take their time and fully understand the needs of the residents who elected them.

“The majority of MDC-T councillors who were in the last council were reluctant to fight on the side of ratepayers,” he said.

“We are hoping as the HRT that the new crop of councillors will be more engaging with residents.

“Harare residents voted earnestly and have placed their trust in these new councillors, therefore, they should not let them down.

“The old councillors behaved and acted more like they were council employees, hence they largely spent most of their time defending council management and not pursuing ratepayers’ interests.”

Mr Shumba said a few councillors respected the electorate and fought for residents, registering significant achievements in terms of utilisation of the 25 percent ward retention funds and engaging council officials on behalf of ratepayers.

“What needs to change is the attitude of the council management and not necessarily the councillors alone,” he said.

“There is need to harmonise relations among ratepayers, their elected representatives and the service delivery managers without finding faults with each other.”

The City of Harare has not collected garbage from most communities for the past four weeks and suburbs are littered with mountains of refuse.