By Fanuel James
For years we were told devolution was the answer.
Section 264 of the Constitution promised local authorities the power to govern their own affairs.
They could raise their own revenue, and manage their own services.
Bulawayo, with its proud history of municipal governance and ratepayer accountability, was supposed to be the textbook example.
Then came Geo Pomona.
Here is the irony: the same Government that lectures councils about financial discipline, transparency, and following procurement law has bypassed every single protocol to impose a waste management deal on Bulawayo City Council.
Protocol Thrown Out
By law, service delivery contracts for cities must go through council tender processes.
Public Finance Management Act, Urban Councils Act, and the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act are clear.
Councils advertise, evaluate, and award.
Residents and ratepayers get to see who got what, for how much.
With Geo Pomona, none of that happened in Bulawayo.
The deal was announced from Harare.
Council woke up to a fait accompli: a private company, already operating the Pomona dumpsite in Harare, was being extended to Bulawayo.
No council resolution. No competitive tender. No public consultation.
The Minister responsible for Local Government Daniel Garwe, used “policy directives” to override council autonomy.
So much for devolution.
How The “Efficiency” Argument Collapses
Government’s defense is always the same: “Councils are failing.
“We must intervene for the good of residents.”
But the intervention itself creates the failure.
You cannot claim to be rescuing service delivery by removing the very institution mandated to deliver it.
Bulawayo City Council has engineers, a health department, and a budget line for refuse collection.
What it lacks is fiscal space because central Government has for years delayed disbursements, taken over functions, and undermined revenue collection.
Now the solution is to hand the function to a private company under terms Bulawayo did not negotiate.
If the goal was efficiency, why not capacitate the council? If the goal was transparency, why avoid tender?
The Harare Template Exported
The irony deepens because Geo Pomona in Harare is itself controversial.
Questions have been raised in Parliament about costs, lack of value-for-money audits, and the fact that residents still see no improvement in garbage collection while millions are paid out.
Instead of pausing and asking, “Did this work?”, Government is franchising the model.
It’s like rolling out a medicine that hasn’t passed clinical trials.
Bulawayo ratepayers are now expected to fund a Harare experiment they never voted for.
What This Says About Devolution
Devolution cannot mean “you govern until we disagree, then we take over.”
That is centralization wearing devolution clothes.
By overriding protocol, Government is sending two dangerous messages to councils.
The first is that Council mandate is conditional.
“Either you follow our politics or we will impose contractors on you”.
The second is a message to investors.
“Access is through political corridors in Harare, not through competitive bidding in Bulawayo.
Both narratives undermine the rule of law and local democracy.
If Government genuinely wants clean streets in Bulawayo, it should release devolution funds timeously so councils can buy trucks and pay workers
It should also allow Council to tender for waste management partners, with Geo Pomona free to bid like everyone else.
Then the angle about transparency.
How much is Bulawayo paying? For what tonnage? For how long?
Anything less is not service delivery. It is the centralization of patronage.
The tragedy is that the people who will suffer most are Bulawayo residents who just want their bins collected.
They are caught between a council whose powers are being hollowed out, and a company whose contract was imposed without their voice.
That is the real irony: in the name of “cleaning up” Bulawayo, Government has made a mess of governance itself.
