President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government's penchant to impose deals that have potentially far-reaching impacts on the way local authorities are run in this country flies in the face of its public posturing that it supports devolution of power.
Over the past few years, central government has imposed deals on urban councils such as the acquisition of fire tenders from Belarus and waste management contracts.
Some of these contracts have been handed to politically exposed people, raising fears that the policy imposition by central government is motivated by the desire to siphon money from local authorities instead of improving service delivery.
It was against this background that we found Local Government minister Daniel Garwe’s announcement that the government will soon roll out pre-paid water meters in Harare and its dormitory towns of Chitungwiza, Ruwa and Norton.
Garwe also revealed that the exercise will be extended to other cities in due course.
His ministry has already signed agreements with the City of Harare, Hangzhou Liason Technology Company and Helcraw Electrical to implement the meter project on a build, operate and transfer model in the capital.
The government says the model, water treatment, purification, distribution and billing will be privatised, initially in Harare, before being rolled outside Harare.
It is worth noting at this point that one of the companies, Helcraw Electrical, is associated with Zanu PF legislator Farai Jere.
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All the companies that were imposed on the local authority were by Garwe’s ministry and there is no record of the project being put to tender.
The imposition of the project on Harare and plans to do the same with other local authorities is contrary to the principles of devolution.
Besides the transparency question, there are concerns that introduction of prepaid meters is not a priority in most of Zimbabwe’s urban areas where water remains a scarce commodity.
In a country where the majority of people are unemployed the introduction prepaid meters would ensure that ordinary citizens would be deprived of a basic right, which is access to water.
A number of Harare’s suburbs have not had running water for more than 10 years for instance and installing prepaid water meters cannot be a priority by any stretch.
Central government should instead be pre-occupied with ensuring that every household in Harare has adequate access to clean water before embarking on projects such as the installation of meters.
There is need to respect the latter and spirit of Zimbabwe’s devolution laws.
