On the 20th of June 2023, CNRG hosted an awareness and conscious-building workshop on transparency and accountability with Residents’ Associations and CBOs from Hwange and Vic Falls to train them on how they can effectively hold local authorities to account for service delivery in the communities.
The workshop ran concurrently with one of the objectives of the Strengthening Extractive and natural resources sector transparency and Accountability through citizen action and parliamentary oversight in Zimbabwe (STACAP) project of strengthening and empowering civil society mining-affected communities and citizens to effectively hold duty bearers state actors and the executive accountable.
The workshop also brought in councillors from the local authorities who shared the practicalities of holding the Council to account and how best the residential associations can ask for accountability.
The Auditor General Reports findings are worrying regarding Hwange Local Board, Hwange Rural District Council and Victoria Falls Town Council. The findings include Councils operating without key policy documents, failure to review and approve payroll prior to processing, absence of control over contracted-out services, improper management of Council assets, development of and without the approval of the responsible Minister and other issues on ineffective internal control systems.
The two local authorities are endowed with natural resources, but they are not being used to benefit those local authorities.
Speaking on the interrelationship between corruption and service delivery Farai Maguwu, CNRG Executive Director called upon the present councillors to be accountable and called upon the Residential association to bring these duty-bearers and councils accountable to curb corruption and ensure smooth service delivery.
“Let’s continue fighting and promoting a culture of Accountability for the betterment of our societies. Poor service delivery is not a norm, being a councillor or MP does not constitute a job opportunity, instead, it provides a platform for representing your constituency on a larger scale. Let us seize the opportunity and ensure good governance of our constituency” said Maguwu.