September (New Ziana) -Chaotic scenes marked the swearing in on Thursday of the 45 City of Harare councillors who were elected in the August 23 harmonized elections.

Rowdy opposition Citizens for Coalition Change (CCC) supporters who came to witness the ceremony sang and threw yellow balloons in the council chambers from the gallery, interrupting the acting chamber secretary Warren Chiwawa who presided over the proceedings together with town clerk Hosea Chisango.

An additional 14 from the Women’s quota also took their oaths, bringing to 59 the total number of councillors.

Out of the 45 elected councillors, the CCC has an overwhelming majority with 40 and the ruling Zanu PF has 5, while from the Women quota 9 are from the CCC and 5 from Zanu PF.

The councillors, who will all be attending an induction on Friday, will also elect the city mayor and deputy at the first council meeting to be held at a date still to be set.

Just like the previous one which was opposition dominated, the incoming council has a mammoth task of bringing sanity back to the capital city, previous known as the “Sunshine City”, which is currently in a deplorable state.

Speaking soon after being sworn into office, returning councillor who is also former mayor Jacob Mafume said the new mandate which they have been given to run the affairs of the city will turn things for the better.

Mafume refused to shoulder blame for the poor service delivery, saying a lot of things were beyond their control as the local government.

“We have been given another mandate to run the affairs of the city of Harare and we are grateful to all the citizens for having confidence in us once again,” he said.

“Last time service delivery was disturbed because of a number of reasons which include recalls and arrests. The economy also made it difficult for us to perform well because we would get the RTGS local currency, but providers would demand USD payments.

“However, this time around we are going into a drive to revitalize three main areas. These are refuse collection, water and sports and recreation in the suburbs.”

The city of Harare is characterised by, among other things, litter and waste dumps in business and residential areas, open burning of garbage as well as indiscriminate dumping of solid waste.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa in July this year declared Harare a “state of disaster” due to the uncleanliness of the city.

New Ziana