The recent outbreak of typhoid within the capital city, Harare, has brought with it immeasurable stress to both communities and the still-unwholesome public health delivery system, which is likely to be overwhelmed by a likely degeneration of the current crisis due to lack of urgency by government and local authorities in dealing with the scourge.
Health experts have warned of a likely outbreak of other water-borne diseases in the city, burdened by severe shortage of clean water as well as a pile up of garbage within suburbs due to non-collection of refuse by the Harare City Council.
The city's director of health services, Prosper Chonzi, has warned that continuing poor sanitation conditions could lead to a cholera outbreak and indicated that a clean-up and awareness campaign was now underway.
This has largely involved the rounding up of street vendors trying to eke out an honest living in a country where structural unemployment is estimated at nearly 90 percent.
Indications are that many hotels, restaurants and open air food outlets face closure for failing to meet health and hygienic standards.
This is all very well, except that council ignores that it is at the centre of the impending crisis, if it is not in fact the one spawning it.
It is very easy for people in power to scapegoat others for problems that they should accept responsibility.
Yet the outbreak of typhoid, whose casualties so far number close to 2?000 in the capital alone, exposes the delinquency ravaging our local authorities, particularly the Harare City Council where, despite the fact that rates and other services are being paid for in US dollars thanks to a hard currency regime adopted 2009, services still remain pathetic, with water supplies still unavailable in most suburbs while those receiving suppliers complain of poor treatment of the water supplies from the local authority.
Some suburbs have not had refuse collected for months, and residents have resorted to dumping waste on undesignated places, consequently creating an unhygienic environment that could result in an outbreak of water-borne diseases, particularly during the current rain season.
Yet residents are paying hard currency for all city council services. The excuse given by the previous council was that the Zimbabwe dollar, now disused, was under attack from inflationary pressure and the daily erosion of its value made it difficult for the Harare City Council to meet its obligations to residents.
This, together with the argument that there was a shortage of foreign currency for the importation of critical water treatment chemicals as well as other things like refuse collection trucks, was understandable.
What is difficult to understand is why service delivery by the Harare City Council remains poor even when residents are paying for rates and services in US dollars.
It is a tragedy that the bulk of the money collected by the city council is going towards sustaining the hefty packages the Harare City Council, particularly hefty salaries for its management, awarded upon dollarisation.
Moreover, elected councillors, whose duty should be to defend the interests of residents, are obsessed with personal interests, and have seen their election into council as an opportunity to line their pockets at the expense of the residents.
Consequently, we have a situation where councillors look the other way when management indulges in profligacy because they want the same management to support them in their extravagance.
This is indeed sad.
Chonzi has noted: "We can have cholera anytime. The environment is conducive for the outbreak. We need to be proactive and play our part."
Yes, the impending crisis is precisely due to the fact that the Harare City Council has not been playing its part.
The current situation is already an indictment on the Harare City Council, and Mayor, Muchadeyi Masunda, who is seeking an extension of his term, should accept responsibility both on behalf of the councillors, management and on his own behalf.
Zimbabweans are aware of the devastating consequences of cholera outbreak: In 2008, more than 4?000 people died country-wide after a cholera outbreak blamed on the lack of clean water. The public health delivery system failed to cope, and the humanitarian disaster was averted through the intervention of non-governmental organisations.
It is therefore expected that the current cases of typhoid fever, which have so far only struck in Harare and have fortunately not yet resulted in any deaths, have spread fear even in communities outside the capital.
Yet both central government and the Harare City Council are not treating the situation with the urgency it deserves, as noted by the Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights.
The group said in a statement that with recent heavy rains in Harare, clean water supplies were irregular or completely absent in townships around the city, while burst sewers were left unattended.
A recent Parliamentary report noted that government was not paying much attention to the health sector, leaving donors to do most of the work and putting more emphasis on curative methods and not preventive initiatives to pre-empt outbreaks.
Councils across the country need to relook at their priorities and begin to understand that they are there to serve the interests of residents rather than management, councilors and their cronies.
The time for lame excuses is long gone, and local authorities should not be viewed as feeding troughs.
Rates for services are already too high for locals due to the meager incomes prevailing in the domestic economy, yet to demand that residents pay these in the absence of proper services just to support an extravagant packs and an unwarranted salary bill for highly paid management within city councils is not only an insult, but a reckless injustice to the residents.
This situation is likely to create further resistance among residents who are likely to end up boycotting payment of rates to local authorities.
The change we seek should therefore start with the leadership!
Show/Hide commentswritten by The Truth, February 09, 2012
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written by Frank Goldstein, February 03, 2012
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