Beatific Gumbwanda
CHIREDZI-Town Council (CTC) recently honored its first Alderman, Gibson Hwende, who is the current chairperson and ward 1 councilor.
Hwende was first elected in 2013 before he was selected as the chairperson in 2018 after his re-election.
CTC was awarded a town status on April 1, 2000 and its now two decades old but had never honored a councilor for serving more than eight years until 2022.
CTC then resolved to award its chairperson Hwende with an Alderman status during the full council meeting for being a long serving councilor as stipulated by the Urban Councils Act.
In an interview Hwende said he appreciated his colleagues for moving a motion to award him an Alderman status after serving for nine years as a councilor and promised to continue maximizing efforts towards improving service delivery in Chiredzi.
“I feel much honored to be the first councilor in Chiredzi Urban to be awarded an Alderman status and want to appreciate my colleagues in council for honoring me like that. This reflects that people have trust in me.
“As an Alderman, I just want to continue providing the much needed development which we are doing collectively as a council and we wish to achieve all our targeted projects that we set aside since 2018 towards being a municipality by 2025,” said Hwende.
He also thanked government for availing devolution funds and the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP) which saw many of the local authority’s roads that were in disarray being serviced.
CTC recently commissioned four service vehicles that were bought from council’s internal funds and two tractors using devolution funds.
The local authority is also waiting the delivery of a fire tender vehicle and another refuse compactor which were purchased using devolution funds.
“ I would also want to thank the government of Zimbabwe for availing devolution funds which helped us in acquiring dump tractors, fire tender as well as a refuse compactor which we are expecting their delivery soon. We also want to achieve most of our projects in our five year strategic plan including improving sewer reticulation,” added Hwende.
Chiredzi Residents and Ratepayers Association chairperson Jonathan Muusha said Hwende deserved to be an alderman because he already served for two terms as a councilor and chairperson where some notable improvements including employee capacitation were witnessed.
“He deserves that status because he served for two terms as a councilor where we have seen a lot of improvements in council including employee capacitation through refresher workshops, building mutual trust between residents and council as well as calling for the municipality status for Chiredzi,” said Muusha.
