Residents want the Chombo Commission fired

Disgruntled residents complained that the commission led by Darlington Museka had failed to improved service delivery in the town. MDC-T won the local council elections but Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo is accused by residents of deliberately reversing the will of people by illegally suspending democratically elected councillors.

A recent survey carried out by this paper indicated that service delivery in the town has virtually collapsed – with residents going for days with no access to clean water while heaps of uncollected garbage have become a permanent feature. Roads are littered with potholes and gullies.

People spoke out during the elections in 2008 and we wonder why Chombo has suspended our democratically elected councillors and replace them with his inexperienced cronies. These people are not doing us a favour but simply siphoning ratepayers money, complained Peter Dzumbunu, a resident of Vhengere township.

Civic society members, including ZimRights and Doctors for Human Rights, said they are planning to join residents to stage a demonstration against the Commission which they said must resign immediately because it had failed to deliver the needs of people.

We cannot have a country where local authorities are run by people handpicked by certain a politician because of their political affiliation. This has negatively impacted on the quality service delivery in our town. Residents are paying up but they are receiving a raw deal. We want to take it to the streets to show our dissatisfaction to the government, said Mike Mukusha, a human rights activist.

Sources at the council said some potential donors who were keen to channel resources to upgrade infrastructure pulled out citing political interference by Zanu (PF) politicians. Didymus Mutasa and other Zanu (PF) are wrecking havoc here. They are just staffing the local authorities with their cronies and disturbing smooth operations of the councils. Donors wanted to assist the council but they have pulled out citing political interference, said a council official who declined to be named for fear of reprisal.

Residents appealed to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to rein in Chombo because they have suffered from his corrupt activities and abuse of office. Last year, Chombo suspended Acting Rusape Town Secretary Moses Chiraya and some MDC-T councillors on trumped up charges of corruption and embezzlement of funds but never produced evidence to substantiate the claims.