HARARE - The government will soon embark on a project to train urban councillors on their key functions and responsibilities in the wake of increased cases of corruption within the local authorities, a government official has said. The Minister of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development, Dr Ignatius Chombo, said the level of corruption, especially in urban authorities, was worrying. He said the workshops were mainly meant to avoid the present scenario where councillors confused their roles with that of council officials, thereby impacting negatively on service delivery.
Last year we had the opportunity of training over 2 000 urban and rural councillors but it appears those workshops did not yield many results, especially when you look at all the corruption taking place within the urban councils.
The main reason for the training workshop is to avoid role conflicts which have become the order of the day in most urban councils; some of these councillors do not even know the boundaries of their wards, said Chombo.
They thought on being elected as councillors that they had got some form of employment accompanied by a substantial allowance, which is really not true as they are simply there to pass resolutions on behalf of the residents, he added.
Chombo said most of these councillors were focusing on personal gains and benefiting their respective parties and thus ending up in conflict with council officials. It was recently reported that Bulawayo councillors had rejected a government directive on allowances, saying most of them were not gainfully employed and the proposed figure of US$150 was not in tandem with their duties.
Chombo said it was important to note that the councillors were not obliged to receive these allowances, but were simply being given a token of appreciation. If we allow these councillors to continue overstepping their authority and conflicting the roles of council officials we will end up having more cases of financial discord. Meanwhile, Dr Chombo said his Ministry would soon ensure that they appointed their quarter of government appointed councillors in all local authorities so as to support the inexperienced councillors who were currently grossly
abusing their offices.
These councillors will be strictly appointed as per experience in various crucial fields like accountancy, law and health, they will be meant to provide that expertise that is lacking in most local authorities although they wont have the power to vote we really hope the elected councils would take cue from them, he said.
Post published in: News