The Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) has admitted to failing to run urban local authorities around the country, with its secretary general, Mr Charlton Hwende, threatening to dismiss councillors who continue to struggle to execute their mandates.

Most local authorities, which are being run by the opposition parties are suffering from serious poor service delivery, with heaps of uncollected garbage, delivery of dirty water to residents and failure to maintain roads being the order of the day.

Some urban councils have lost huge sums of money as councillors and executives take turns to steal. Allocation of stands is being done on political party basis, with those from the ruling Zanu PF not getting housing or commercial stands. Worse still, some of the stands have been allocated on reserved land, which has seen some councillors and executives being arrested.

Responding to questions during a social media discussion on the forthcoming March 26 by-elections, Mr Hwende admitted the chaotic nature that characterises the way they have been running urban councils.

“We can do better in Harare in terms of the systems, in terms of the way we conduct our business, in terms of stands sales, in terms of service delivery there are a lot of gaps as the leadership we must implore upon our deployees for them to ensure that those things are covered,” he said.

“I was talking to some councillors yesterday, the ones that are remaining and those that are still in the MDC Alliance but are sympathising with us and must eventually do the right thing who come to the Citizens, that I don’t understand one thing, that you can’t be in council and be a councillor and use the lack of diesel as an excuse why you can’t send trucks to residential areas to ferry rubbish for example.

“These are simple things . . . if you are elected as a councillor, if you can’t ensure that bins are collected regularly, weekly, then don’t lie to the residents. Look, come out in the open and resign and say we can’t do these things rather than continuing to be there, drawing allowances, getting stands for councillors but failing to do simple things.”

The admission by Mr Hwende becomes the first high-profile admission by an opposition party official that the people they have seconded to council have been total disasters.

Harare’s fortunes turned for the worst since the year 2000 when the opposition, then the united MDC, won municipal elections. Most, if not all, of the councillors, together with the executives, became very rich overnight despite that most of them were coming from universities and had no known working history or businesses that could allow them to have the kind of riches they now have.

Successive opposition councillors and their leadership have taken turns to blame their failure to collect garbage, provide clean water and repair roads on Zanu PF, even when the ruling party either has no representative or have fewer than five councillors.

Experts say Mr Hwende’s admission was a bold step that could alienate him from the rest of the CCC leadership and some voters who want to always blame Zanu PF.

“It was high time the opposition woke up and realised that they were fooling themselves, their supporters and residents of urban areas that someone was supposed to do their job of collecting garbage while they get allowances for doing nothing.

“Surely, the money that they have been paying themselves for organising workshops in areas such as Kariba and Victoria Falls, even when they have better facilities in Harare, could have been channelled towards service delivery.

“Now, with by-elections coming on March 26, voters must choose to stick to dirty water, bad roads except those rehabilitated by Government and uncollected garbage, or vote for a party that has proven that it has the interests of all citizens at heart. The Zanu PF Government has helped improve the water and roads situation in Harare, and all level-headed voters should trust Zanu PF with their votes come by-elections day,” said Mr Gabriel Sibanda, a political analyst.Herald.