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Manicaland Correspondent
RESIDENTS of Mutare have criticised the city’s 2019 budget, saying it concentrated more on the welfare of its workers than ratepayers from whom the city gets revenue.

The residents say they have endured years of dry taps and poor service, yet council did not seem concerned about the matter.

Mutare City completed consultations for the 2019 budget last week, amid calls to improve services from most wards in the city.

Shingai Nyakudya from Dangamvura said: “We have gone for years without water. The budget that council presented today focuses more on interests of their employees than residents.

“They are busy proposing to buy cars and extending loans to their executives, yet it seems as if we are living in the rural areas than in a city.

“We do our laundry at a water point far away and we fetch water to drink from that same source, which is not healthy at all.”

Nyakudya urged the local authorities to prioritise solving water problems that were affecting different suburbs.

“Water reticulation has been a major problem,” he said.

Another resident, Mrs Evelin Ncube, said they were not happy that council officials seemed not to take residents seriously by failing to attend to their immediate needs.

“We need Mutare City Council to also adopt policies promoting Government’s ease of doing business thrust,” she said.

“Some residents have been paying council its dues diligently and we feel such acts should be reciprocated through good service delivery.”

Responding to the residents’ concerns, Mutare acting chief planning officer Mr Richard Simbi said the idea behind improving their employees’ working conditions was to attract skilled, efficient and qualified human resources capable of delivering proper services to residents.

“The budget was impressive,” he said.

“It sought to enhance the working conditions of employees according to the contracts each employee signed.

“We aim to attract qualified, skilled and efficient workers who will deliver gratifying services to the city as required by residents.”

Mr Simbi commended residents for continuously supporting council by attending the meetings.

“We were given excellent ideas by the residents, which we can use to address some of our challenges,” he said.

“They talked about our revenue collection, expenditure and issues on service delivery, among other things.”

In a statement, the city’s environmental health technician, Mr Piniel Simbanegavi, said the city was working towards procuring more refuse collecting trucks.

“In the area of environmental health, we are trying as much as we can to remove refuse collection,” he said.

“We are supposed to have 10 refuse trucks and so far we have received three and budgeted for another three.

“We have also proposed to build a clinic in Hobhouse as part of our efforts to provide the services that residents require.”