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Yeukai Karengezeka Herald Correspondent

MDC-Alliance is conducting workshops with the party’s councillors in all the provinces as a way of enabling them to improve service delivery amid widespread evidence of poor administration.

Urban councils have been beset by poor service delivery while corruption activities are rampant especially those to do with parcelling out of land and unprocedural tender allocations.

The development came at a time when the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission has announced that it is heavily descending on all corrupt council officials as it intensifies its efforts to bring sanity to all local authorities.

In an interview, MDC-A secretary-general Mr Charlton Hwende said his party was aware of the challenges facing their party members in running affairs of their respective cities hence the initiative.

“We are aware there are several challenges facing the councillors and the mayors in most of the urban cities. This is the reason for coming up with these workshops which are aimed at developing strategic plans for the cities and ensure that they enhance service delivery that meet the expectations of the people that voted for them,” he said.

He said the programme commenced with Harare last week and will also be run this week in Bulawayo then spread to other provinces.

“We successfully held the workshops with Harare last week and we will be in Bulawayo this week then move to Masvingo and other cities.

We are moving around with technocrats to capacitate these councillors and we hope to see improvements in the manner in which they conduct their operations at their town houses,” said Mr Hwende.

Commenting on issues of corruption in councils, Mr Hwende said his party did not tolerate corruption.

“As a party we do not tolerate corruption, at one point we suspended all Chitungwiza councillors because of that.

“However, currently we only hear of allegations of corruptions happening in Chitungwiza and Harare. For example Chitungwiza mayor Lovemore Maiko was arrested, but later released by police for lack of evidence”.

He urged residents who had information on any corrupt activities being undertaken by their councillors to lodge complaints at his office so that they will be dealt with.