harare24dmin By: Nicholas Ncube
The state of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, is more than an inconvenience—it is a national disgrace. The once-proud ‘Sunshine City’ has deteriorated into a morass of uncollected garbage, potholed streets, and chronic water shortages, its affairs are being managed worse than a local tuckshop.
The current City Council, led by the Mayor and councillors, is visibly failing the people of Harare. Their governance reflects a fatal combination of internal corruption and incompetence. The visible decay of the capital the perpetual dirt, the dysfunctional traffic lights, the persistent water rationing are an embarrassment to the entire nation. As the capital, Harare is the national shop front; its squalid condition reflects poorly on us as a people.
Harare’s crisis is not new, and neither is the establishment of bodies to investigate it. The failure of the current city administration to effectively tackle corruption and mismanagement is compounded by a historical failure to implement the findings of previous inquiries.
Notable commissions and ad-hoc bodies established to look into the city’s affairs include:
The Makwavarara Commission (2003), The Mahachi Commission (2006) which was marred by massive land loss and alleged corruption, notably the highly skewed US$90 million Airport Road deal with Augur Investments. The Cheda Commission of Inquiry (Currently Sitting), Harare has had its fair share of commisisons.
The recurring pattern is the wholesale shelving of recommendations made by these commissions. The city needs to take seriously the findings of all commissions that have been established, using them as a non-negotiable blueprint to establish proper financial controls and accountability, rather than letting the reports gather dust.
One of the most scandalous aspects of Harare’s decay is the stark disconnect between executive remuneration and service delivery. Testimony before the current Commission has confirmed that the City Council pays outrageous, super-inflationary salaries to its top executives, collectively reaching figures as high as US$500,000 per month for the executive team alone, with the Town Clerk’s salary reportedly being in the region of US$27,000 monthly, excluding lucrative perks and allowances.
Crucially, these highly paid executives do not have any clear performance contracts or expectations. They operate without the most basic accountability tools used in the private sector.
They are rewarded handsomely for managing a city that continuously fails to provide water, collect waste, or maintain roads. This system of reward without results is a profound sign of institutionalized predation, where top officials are allowed to feed off the city’s resources with impunity while the residents suffer. The Mayor and Council’s failure to enforce performance metrics and control the ballooning salary bill is a colossal betrayal of public trust.
The city’s salvation hinges on a serious overhaul where technocratic competence and transparent performance management replace the current system of political patronage and self-enrichment. The decay of our capital is an embarrassment, and the electorate deserves a council that governs a world-class city, not one that manages a failing tuckshop.
