By Valerie Mapanga
Norton has two dams, Lake Chivero and Darwendale, which would make the building of a water plant very easy because raw water is plenteous.
Currently Harare extracts raw water from Norton and Morton Jaffray, its treatment plant is actually in Norton.
Yet, Harare sells water to Norton, providing just above 5 mega litres per day against a demand of 25 mega litres.
This means Norton has perennial water shortages.
Former Norton MP Temba Mliswa at one time tried to engage a South African entity to build a treatment plant.
The deal never materialized.
Norton Town Council has done the same many times over and recently engaged the University of Zimbabwe to undertake a feasibility study.
The study will be used to build a 50 mega-litre water treatment plant.
At the 296th Ordinary Council Meeting Town Secretary Kizito Muhomba revealed that an assessment of existing infrastructure had been conducted.
A Town Headed For Nowhere
After so many years of failure its very difficult to muster excitement around the news.
Much of Norton is derelict or on the path to the same state.
Katanga its business centre looks like the aftermath of a frenetic guerrilla war.
Haphazard informal business shacks hug ugly vendings stalls while the heavy stench of disemboweled fish clogs the streets fighting for space with reckless kombi drivers.
There is little semblance of order to the place and Norton Town Council appears to have accepted the reality of this carnage.
Any overtures, like the recent demolitions of informal stalls by NTC, is greeted with shock for herewith the carnage has been normalized.
Politicians Devise Ways To Survive
Meanwhile, many of the political leaders in the town have since discovered new ways of surviving the absence of tangible service delivery news.
Currently the biggest name in Norton’s political space is Ward 7 Councillor Tinashe Machemedze, a ZANU PF politician.
Machemedze, has seemingly adopted the Mliswa template for the town consistently doling out hampers, wheelchairs and an assortment of gifts to vulnerable members of the community.
He has worked with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) embassy and installed 7 solar powered boreholes.
Every year he organizes and holds a hamper distribution event where locals receive gifts and feast on food.
This year Machemedze invited flamboyant Minister of Youth Tino Machakaire who arrived at the event for the vulnerable in a helicopter.
Such has been the growing stature of the Councillor that some have already anointed him the 2028 legislative candidate for ZANU PF.
What Is Development?
This has however raised the question around the type of politicians who should be handed mandates by the electorate.
In an environment where service delivery is proving difficult many politicians have resorted to this shortcut of philanthropic work.
While the optics of donations makes saints of the benefactors it doesn’t bridge the gap of missing services.
Various basic services remain missing in the community and with politicians now focusing on surviving the next electoral battle residents are left vulnerable.
By receiving the “free” gifts, they endorse the specific brand of politics that leaves them without water, no roads, no refuse collection, and no voice!
There is no one willing to face the fact that roads are bad, there is no water, developers have fleeced people money and fled and NTC is on autopilot.
The very definition of development has itself come under debate with some defending donations as a form of development.
Some however remain adamant that nothing developmental is happening as all the players are doing is safeguarding their slots for 2028.
In such a scenario, expecting very little is the new cheat code to survive the abject failure of both complaining technocrats and hotchpotch politicians ready to employ any trick to win and waste 4 years.
