Let there be water in Gweru

GWERU – Recently elected Gweru City Councillors have vowed to work towards improving the city’s
perennial water challenges.
Councillors who spoke to New Ziana after their swearing-in ceremony at Gweru Town House on
Friday said they were aware of the challenges that residents have been facing and would work on
addressing them.
Ward 18 councillor William Mazango said they want to prioritise service delivery so that they restore
Gweru’s pride.
“We want to prioritise service delivery, which also means prioritising council employees. Standards
in Gweru have gone down and we need to put it back to world-class standards, which cannot be
attained if we do not have functional traffic lights like is the case,” he said.
Gweru has not had functional traffic lights for close to 10 years as council has a long-standing
dispute with the contractor who was awarded the tender to install them.
Council workers have also complained over poor remuneration and conditions of service.
Ward 9 councillor Nyaradzo Madzikure said the city’s health delivery service was in shambles with
no drugs at most clinics. She added that there was also need to improve maternal health in the city
by opening more maternity clinics.
“Currently there are no maternity services at Mkoba 1 Clinic, which means women have to travel to
Mkoba Polyclinic in Mkoba 13 and Mtapa Clinic. Providing maternity services there would reduce
transport costs women have to travel to access maternity services,” she said.
Madzikure said there is also need to improve water supply as women spend more time in boreholes
queues and at times during the night exposing themselves to thieves.
Ward 3 councillor Martin Chivhoko, who is serving a second term, said they would lobby government
to relax procurement conditions which resulted in the last council failing to procure water pumps to
increase pumping capacity.
“The process of acquiring the pumps is cumbersome and we want to lobby the Procurement
Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe to relax procurement conditions,” he said.
Chivhoko said they will also work on engaging the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and
Distribution Company so that Gwenoro Pump Station gets uninterrupted supply of electricity.
“We want to engage the power utility so that there is no load shedding at Gwenoro, which at times
has resulted in citizens failing to get enough water,” he said.
Gweru acting Town Clerk Livingston Churu said the councillors would be taken for a two-day
induction that will be conducted by the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works after which
they will elect the mayor, deputy mayors and chairpersons of committees.
He said management expects councillors to serve with dignity, truthfulness and professionalism.

Gweru district development coordinator Tarisai Mudadigwa challenged the newly elected councillors
to leave a legacy characterised by hard work, honesty and dedication to duty.
A total of 18 elected councillors and five women quota representatives were sworn in in the Citizens
Coalition for Change-dominated council.
Four women were elected among the 18.