BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) plans to resurrect a skills exchange programme with the Japanese Volunteers Cooperation to tackle the severe brain drain facing the local authority.
Council has been hard hit by the exodus of experienced personnel leaving the country in search of better paying jobs.
Critical council departments are operating with skeleton staff after civil engineers (roads, water, electro-mechanical), land surveyors, clinical medical officers and fire brigade personnel among others, quit their jobs.
According to latest council minutes, council received an email from the Japan International Cooperation Agency program officer Charlotte Ndlovu who expressed interest to partner with BCC.
“We, as the Japan International Cooperation Agency, are interested in reviewing the technical cooperation enjoyed with BCC which saw four JOCVs being deployed to Bulawayo City Council between 1996 and 2008,” the minutes read.
“These volunteers were deployed in the following areas; town planning, road construction, surveying and public administration.”
Ndlovu urged the council to make applications to receive Japanese volunteers.
“We are happy to notify you that the programme is still available and calling upon the BCC to make applications to receive Japanese Volunteers once again and we have various fields you can choose from,” he wrote.
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“We will be happy if we can have a meeting with your office and other departments within council to discuss the possibility of deploying volunteers to work with BCC.”
The minutes said the Japan Agency would be responsible for all the expenses incurred by the volunteers during their stay and attachment to the council.
City fathers said the exchange programme will bridge the skills flight.
If the agreement is signed, council would be required to seek authority from the ministry of Local Government and Public Works.
“The Management Committee had resolved to recommend to council that the Overseas Volunteers Cooperation Programme be resuscitated in 2024 after budgeting, and applications to be done in 2023, since it was beneficial to council for improved service delivery,” the minutes read.
