Zimpapers Logo

Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
The Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) is set to monitor the quality of services offered by Harare City Council, it has been learnt.

Recently, Harare Mayor Councillor Bernard Manyenyeni admitted that the water pumped into residents’ homes may not be safe for human consumption, and advised consumers to exercise caution until such a time that the quality had improved.

It also emerged that the companies contracted by Harare City Council to rehabilitate the city’s roads under the $17 million Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme had no capacity to carry out the job, as most of the roads are already in a sorry state.

In an interview yesterday, Acting Town Clerk Eng Hosiah Chisango confirmed the tie-up with SAZ, saying it will produce regular reports on the quality of services provided by the city.

“The Standards Association of Zimbabwe is the body which deals with standards in Zimbabwe. It has approached us to say can we partner and work together.

“Our desire will be for them to come in and standardise our processes, even check the standards of the quality our products like water, road works and everything that we do around the city. Even the products that we use as inputs, we want them checked,” he said.

He said the city normally uses SAZ and Zimlabs to check the quality of water treatment chemicals. Eng Chisango said a closer partnership with SAZ could materially impact on the quality of services offered by the local authority.

“We will have an arrangement where they can just come in and produce regular reports regarding the quality of our services in terms of the processes. We are also looking at getting ISO certification for our laboratories,” he                                                                                  said.

“They are basically coming in to assist us to standardise operations that will also improve the level of service. We have put our reports to the relevant council committees and we expect that to be adopted by full council and then we can complete our negotiations with them.”

The services offered by council include water and sewer; road maintenance; public lighting; cleansing ; town planning and development control; building inspectorate; health and licensing; housing, education and social services; parks and cemeteries; and revenue collection as well as  enforcement of by-laws.