HARARE - A manpower shortage has scuttled the Harare City Council’s decentralisation exercise.
Human resources committee chairperson Wellington Chikombo said the failure to recruit more employees was stalling the process.
“There is a need to recruit externally to fill vacant positions in council but the ministry of Local Government has indicated that it would not approve such recruitment until council had achieved the 70:30 ratio of service delivery to salaries,” Chikombo said.
He said areas of concern were general labourers at the Property Development Unit and the Credit Control sections at all district offices.
Harare mayor Bernard Manyenyeni said the decentralisation was not an event which would happen in one day.
He implored councillors and city officials to work at the local level and then review the programme after 90 days.
Acting town clerk Josephine Ncube said she had met with district officers, chief area administration officers and heads of departments to address concerns raised by councillors.
“The programme was being implemented with the available resources and would be reviewed after some time,” she said.
The decentralisation exercise was embarked on as an ease of doing business measure by council through its 100-day Rapid Results Approach (RRA) so that services were found in all district offices.
RRA was launched in October last year as a way to gauge council’s performance using the available resources.
Failure to adhere to the government stipulated salary, service delivery ratio saw council using three quarters of its revenue on wages.
Manyenyeni has said that of $13 million collected monthly, council channels approximately $9 million to salaries, leaving very little for service delivery and maintenance.
A World Bank report on Zimbabwe showed that local authorities’ expenditure rose by 132 percent in three years due to personnel costs while neglecting service delivery in the process.
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