Kimberly Kusauka
Masvingo City Council (MCC) unpacked its 2021 projects, success stories and their failures as they begin to prepare for year 2022 where they promised residents and ratepayers that they would improve on service delivery.
As the year began the city was struggling with major service delivery in terms of water, roads and refuse collection.
Masvingo Town Clerk (TC) Engineer (Eng) Edward Mukaratirwa said the major highlights of 2021 were successes but had challenges also.
He said the priorities for year 2021 were water and sanitation as we as road maintenance.
“The major highlights in terms of service delivery like we indicated at the beginning of year, our number priorities were water and sanitation.
“In terms of sanitation we managed to collect most of the refuse within scheduled time, we will commission a new landfill at Cambria farm,” said Eng Mukaratirwa.
He said council managed to construct Rujeko secondary school and Runyararo west clinic, rehabilitating roads with funding from Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP) 2.
“We managed to construct Rujeko Secondary School, two classroom blocks and one toilet block are almost complete and intend to open when schools open in 2022.
“We also finished the construction of Runyararo West Clinic which is now waiting for equipment and staff to start operating. The clinic, will serve residents from Victoria Range, Runyararo West and parts of Mucheke,” said Eng Mukaratirwa.
He said the new land fill’s first cell is now at 60-70 percent and they will decommission the old dumpsite soon.
“The first cell is between 60 and 70 percent complete. We wanted to start using it by end of this year but we failed because of low cash flows caused by Covid 19 induced lockdown and we hope in the first quarter of 2022 we will be using It.,” said Eng Mukaratirwa.
However, Masvingo Residents associations said there were no success stories in the year 2021 from council as they failed on a number of issues.
Masvingo United Residents and Ratepayers Alliance (MURRA) spokesperson Godfrey Mtimba said 2021 was characterised by water woes, poor health services, poor refuse collection and increased rates.
“Service delivery was generally poor, we had water crisis in the first three quarters of the year and residents have been using the few boreholes in their locations,” said Mtimba.
He said council should improve on water provision, health services, affordable rates and finishing ongoing projects in 2022.
Masvingo Residents Forum (MRF) Coordinator Samuel Parwaringira said they rate council at 50 percent saying they managed to improve on water supply and refuse collection.
“Council has improved in terms of refuse collection where they only skip one or two days, and managed to construct drainage systems and road maintenance.
“There was a slight improvement in water supply from 2019 so moving into 2022 as MRF we want council to improve on the time they take to respond after reports on sewer and water pipe bursts. They should also spray at all homes after sewer flow not only spraying at houses of people they know,” said Parwaringira.
He urged council to improve on the issue of information dissemination which was lacking during the year 2021 so as to improve on service delivery.
“There is poor information dissemination to residents concerning matters to do with service delivery,” said Parwaringira.
Ward 6 Zanu PF Secretary for information Trust Muzozviona said council managed to fight Covid-19 through council clinics but there was poor refuse collection and erratic water provision.
“Council has over the years had its own share of problems ups and downs and 2021 is no exception. We commend the health facilities which stood brave and fought a fierce battle against the Covid-19 pandemic through our council clinics,” said Muzozviona.
He urged council to prioritise refuse collection, water provision, repairing street lighting and refurbishing Mucheke Rank.
“Council should work on street lighting and refurbish Mucheke bus terminus to meet modern standards,” said Muzozviona.
