By Correspondent
Having failed to dislodge the opposition from urban areas ZANU PF has transformed into a Morpheus, holding out two options.
Unlike the Matrix character holding out his hands to Neo and offering up either a pill of knowledge or a pill of blissful ignorance, it’s different for Harare.
The options are a choice between the factual reality of a struggling local authority staggering from one crisis to another or the fiction of an island-Harare that will prosper against the tide of everywhere else.
For Fact
It’s a safe to argue that Council is either incompetent or its a murky empire of corrupt individuals with no appetite for development.
Their sheer inability to turn around certain situations over very long periods of time is staggering.
The ERP has become a tired tale with no solution for over 5 years.
Water issues have also become a perennial challenge, the abnormal becoming normal.
The cited reasons remain the same over the years.
How they have failed to think outside the box and structure context-specific solutions is puzzling considering it’s their full time task.
Simple things like clearing drains or cutting grass are an onerous task for Harare City.
Residents have actually contrived to create their own dumpsites.
Filling drains or any abandoned site with garbage haw become convenient.
In silent affirmation of the plan, Council periodically comes to remove the garbage.
For water, boreholes have slowly begun to appear in high numbers across the urban set-up.
They provide alleviation for the distraught residents.
It’s now even normal to buy water sold by the enterprising.
Bottom line is, the situation is bad and Council doesn’t appear to have an immediate solution.
That is the fact and many have seemingly made peace with it by voting the same group into power for decades.
Those who do this voting, have a form of defense which accuses the ruling party as the actual cause of the city stagnating.
Which brings us to the offered red pill fiction.
The Fiction
Now President Mnangagwa has appointed a Harare Commission of Inquiry to investigate Harare led by retired Justice Maphios Cheda.
According to critics this is an obtuse task to tick boxes on the way to removing elected Councillors and installing a few selected suits.
It has happened before and thus it’s very likely they have a point.
Being the ruling party while essentially being so, on the basis of rural voters, doesn’t have enough political lustre or weight.
You are forever feeling the awkwardness of your pedestal.
Thus there is an unstated drive to regain control of some urban areas.
The Delimitation exercise was seen as another strategic trick towards the same objective.
It yielded results on a low scale that needs to be complemented by more tricks.
The investigative Commission of Inquiry can be one of them.
With all of us angry at Council a Commission that affirms our grievances is a smart way to usurp power.
However, what is essentially being offered is mere fiction.
It’s very unrealistic that a Commission will transform it beyond the level of every other city in the country.
Almost all the major cities and towns are facing the same problems.
Garbage collection, water supply and general service delivery.
Bulawayo, Masvingo, Mutare, Marondera, Gweru are characterised by the same issues.
It’s a political statement to cite having opposition majorities as the reason for their challenges.
The Wider Problem
Something bigger and wider in reach than the culture of an opposition party can contrive to derail all these cities and towns.
David Coltart in Bulawayo has already exhibited far more tactical and practical skills in the short time he has been Mayor.
Still he has not managed to dislodge the varied challenges.
Over time its most likely he will be swallowed and whatever brilliance he has will be a subtle wink.
The country is in a hole and extricating it out of that hole isn’t about any one pill between two.
There is need for a wholesale transformation on the national level that will cascade to the local authourity levels.
The alleged attraction of a Commission is a conjured craft conveniently peddled for limited political reasons.
A Commission to replace the Councillors has no capacity for the kind of transformative interventions required for Harare to return to its former glory.
It would be best to swallow the blue pill and go hard against the elected Councillors than taking the red pill and expecting a select band of political appointment to make a difference.
