Perpetua Murungweni
Local authorities violates human rights by failing to provide good services to the people and this affects the people’s enjoyment to their fundamental rights.
This was revealed in a public meeting held at Mucheke hall on July 6, 2023, hosted by Masvingo United Residents and Ratepayers Association (MURA) and Community Tolerance Reconciliation and Development (COTRAD).
Speaking at the meeting Godfrey Mutimba of MURA expressed its concern over the poor services delivered by Masvingo City Council and said, by doing so the council is depriving human rights of the residents.
“As residents we are not happy with the way that we are getting water from the local authority, water usually runs from our tapes in the morning between 5 am and 9am which is a very a short stime. The constitution clearly states that people have a right to access clean water and food but Masvingo City Council is failing to provide water for us and our access to that water is also limited. This clearly means that the council is violating our right to access safe and clean water,” said Mutimba.
Mutimba also said council further violate residents’ rights through overcharging service the bills which he said were higher than the service people are getting.
“Council is overcharging us for the services that we are not getting, as residents we are receiving atrocious bills that most cannot afford. Council is billing us using the bank rate and with the state the state of our economy the rate rise every month which mean bills rise every month,” said Mutimba.
He went on to say council was violating the basic right to education as they are failing to construct more schools.
“The local authority is also violating our rights to education because they are failing to construct council schools, at one point the council lied to us that they are not allowed to construct secondary schools. We engaged Lawyers for Human Rights who told us that council was lying to, we then confronted them and they agreed to construct Rujeko Secondary School,” he said
COTRAD information officer Leah Matavire said the local authority was violating the right to health.
“Failure to provide water by council leaves us prone to outbreaks like cholera and typhoid as people end drinking water from unprotected and contaminated water sources. This means people’s right to health have been violated,” said Matavire.
Residents who attended the meeting complained mainly on water bills which they said was not reasonable considering that they receive water for a few hours at most.
