Tendai Ruben Mbofana
It outlines strict administrative directives aimed at curbing reckless municipal expenditure.
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Local authorities with unpaid salary arrears face immediate restrictions.
They are forbidden from undertaking foreign trips.
They cannot hold workshops outside their jurisdictions.
They are barred from purchasing executive condition-of-service vehicles.
On paper, these directives appear to enforce long-overdue financial discipline within municipal governance.
Yet, a fundamental anomaly sits at the heart of this document.
The government has chosen to trigger its harshest administrative sanctions around salary arrears and tax defaults.
It has left the collapse of basic public service delivery completely unaddressed.
For residents living in towns like Redcliff, Harare, Bulawayo, and others, this silence is baffling.
Municipal taps in many suburbs have not seen regular water supply for years.
Families are forced to hunt for water at overcrowded communal boreholes or unsafe sources.
In some urban areas, raw sewage regularly flows down residential streets.
Potholes have turned suburban roads into dangerous tracks.
Refuse collections occur sporadically, if at all.
These are not minor inconveniences.
They are daily threats to human health and basic dignity.
Why does an official ministry circular ignore these burning realities?
Why is executive luxury tied to payroll metrics rather than running water?
Municipalities exist primarily to provide basic services to residents.
Ratepayers pay monthly bills specifically to secure clean water, working roads, and clean streets.
They do not fund local authorities merely to sustain municipal payrolls.
Worker welfare is undeniably important.
Employees deserve their earned wages.
However, local government law already explicitly addresses this balance.
Statutory Instrument 69 of 2026 establishes a clear expenditure ratio for local authorities.
It mandates that seventy percent of all collected revenue must go directly toward service delivery.
Only thirty percent is reserved for administration and wages.
The law recognizes that essential public services must take absolute priority over administrative overheads.
When local councils spend the vast majority of their budgets on salaries while infrastructure decays, they break the law.
Yet, Circular Number 9 treats salary arrears as the ultimate metric for intervention.
It sends a dangerous signal to council managers.
It suggests that as long as worker salaries and tax remittances are managed, the total absence of tap water can be tolerated.
This reveals a profound disconnection in central government oversight.
Auditing wage arrears on paper is straightforward for ministry officials.
Measuring dry taps, uncollected garbage, and broken streetlights requires actual accountability to residents.
By focusing strictly on internal financial debt, central government reduces local governance to simple payroll management.
It ignores the primary reason municipal councils exist.
If the government genuinely prioritized citizens, the conditions in Circular Number 9 would look entirely different.
Sanctions against executive privileges ought to be tied directly to service benchmarks.
The rule should be simple and uncompromising.
No foreign travel for any mayor or town clerk whose residents lack regular running water.
No workshops in resort hotels for council executives while sewage flows through residential yards.
No purchase of official vehicles while roads remain impassable.
Executive perks must be earned through tangible service output.
Tying travel bans and car allowances only to salary accounts protects administrative structures while abandoning residents.
It allows council leadership to enjoy comfort as long as financial books are balanced, regardless of whether residents have water.
Ratepayers deserve a government oversight system that puts their well-being first.
Financial discipline must serve human lives, not just accounting ledgers.
Central government directives must explicitly condition executive privileges on clean water, usable roads, and reliable refuse collection.
Without these conditions, these circulars will remain detached from the daily struggles of ordinary citizens.
It is time to align municipal accountability with the actual needs of the people.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com