GWERU City Council is yet to procure an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software system to automate all its operations in a bid to make them effective.
The ERP is referred to as a category of business management software supporting automation and processes linking the business activities on one platform.
It tracks business resources such as cash, raw materials, production capacity and the status of business commitments: orders, purchase orders, and payroll.
Council information and technology manager, Delight Gumbo, said moving away from the manual system in use for decades was long overdue as the current one is not effective.
“As a local authority we are still to get better ERP software to adopt new technology in running our business,” Gumbo said.
She made the revelations during a recent ordinary council meeting.
“We are in the process of procuring a new ERP system which integrates all our processes as the current one is falling short of being effective,” Gumbo said.
“Most of our operations are being done manually with some automated and it’s difficult to mix the two because we have a lot of human interface.”
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In 2017, council said it would adopt the systems, applications and products implementation or smart response technology computer programmes as it migrates from non-automated operations.
But to date the local authority has not moved to new computer technologies.
Over the years most activities at council have been done manually with some departments being run without even a single computer.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa in November 2023 launched the Local Authorities Service Delivery Blueprint that mandated councils to have ERPs to modernise their operations.
The City of Harare failed to get its US$578 million 2024 budget approved by the Local Government and Public Works ministry for not having an ERP.
The city’s old ERP systems were seen as contributing to broader challenges that it faced in areas like revenue collection, service delivery and overall municipal governance.
