Give people freedom to elect best candidates

Give people freedom to elect best candidates

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By Trudy Stevenson, MP

RURAL Council elections will take place across the country next weekend, so we in the cities are aware that campaign teams are frantically rushing all over the place, but we have not heard much about what the various candidates are saying or promising, at their rallies and meetings.

If any candidate thinks he or she is under pressure right now, that is nothing compared to what will face them once they have won. Their task is much more daunting than that of urban councillors, for the simple reason that there is a serious lack of development in the rural areas.

This government is guilty of neglecting the rural areas for 26 years. We are in effect two nations, a poor, backward rural nation and a poor, modern urban nation. At least urbanites have the advantage of modernity, but our rural citizens are languishing back in the Stone Age, some literally using stones to grind their grains and tilling the land with their bare hands or a hoe if they are lucky.

We in the MDC believe there is need to integrate the rural areas with the rest of our nation if we are serious about nation-building. To this end, it will be the challenge of the newly elected councillors to push for real empowerment of their councils so that they can address the needs of the people who elected them.

Rural councils are not mere tools of central government, there to carry out directives from on high. They are the government people at local level have elected, and those people expect them to uplift their communities towards a better life. People in general have more contact with their local authorities than with central government, and for this reason it is vital that democracy works and is seen to work at local level.

Tragically, the Zanu PF government is guilty of abysmal failure in this regard, as highlighted by the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on the Decentralisation and Empowerment of the Rural District Councils as Co-ordinated by the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing (VFM 2004:01).

The Zimbabwe Programme for Economic and Social Transformation (ZIMPREST) embarked on in 1995 included the Decentralisation Programme which sought to develop the capacity of all the then 57 Rural District Councils (RDCs) to plan, implement and manage their own developmental projects in a sustainable manner. The timeframe for the Decentralisation Programme was 1996-2000, yet little if any positive decentralization has taken place to this very date.

The report puts the blame squarely on the co-ordinating Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing “which co-ordinates the Decentralisation Programme did not liaise with the relevant authorities to ensure that the RDC Act and relevant sector Ministries’ Acts are amended.” (Executive Summary i)

The report further states that there has been little or no effort to capacitate the RDCs and that “Some Ministries like Rural Resources and Water Development and Local Government, Public Works and National Housing are not transferring their functions under the pretext that the RDCs do not have the human and financial capacities.” (Executive Summary ii).

It is also widely known that RDCs generate very little revenue at local level, not least because many commercial farmers have been chased away and the new farmers are either unwilling or unable to pay the same level of levies and charges. As a result, they are virtually bankrupt.

In these circumstances, it will be a remarkable councillor indeed who meets the voters’ expectations! It will not matter whether that councillor is MDC or Zanu PF – the obstacles are practically insurmountable. At least the MDC councillor is likely to be aware of the need to change the system, whereas the Zanu PF councillor will be under pressure to maintain the status quo, and not to rock the boat.

My alarm bell rang at an example of this pressure reported in the Herald on Monday 16 October, when Mashonaland East Governor Ray Kaukonde was quoted as saying: “If you feel among yourselves there is no capable councillor for the council chairman’s post, come to my office and we will assist you with a commissioner to head the council.”

As Hon. Kaukonde is essentially a businessman, perhaps he is not familiar with the concept of local government. Let me therefore take this opportunity to educate him and any others who may be under the same misapprehension. Local government is elected by the people at local level. They do not need assistance in the form of having a commissioner appointed by someone higher up, unless they believe their elected council is guilty of gross misconduct or serious dereliction of duty.

Even as badly neglected and backward as our rural areas are, there will be someone in every community capable of leading those people, and they will elect that person, given the freedom to do so.

That is what democracy is all about. Zanu PF should not be afraid of democracy. I will imagine just for a moment that Zimbabwe is indeed a democracy, and say: Let the people decide – and may the best candidates win!

Trudy Stevenson is the shadow minister for local government in the MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara and MP for Harare North
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