You are offside Chitungwiza

GLOBALLY, there is now an increased demand for transparency and accountability in the use of public resources allocated and disbursed to lower tiers of government.

Inevitably, the easy accessibility and user friendliness of such information from local authorities determines the quality and depth of their stakeholder engagements.

In addition, timeous sharing of relevant information facilitates informed decision making and oversight by stakeholders.

Guided by the above, we recently sought information from Chitungwiza Municipality on the current costs of the master plan implementation process and the valuation roll exercise.

We also wanted to know how far they had gone in the implementation of both exercises.

The answer from the responsible council official is the subject of this editorial.

Our editorial is anchored on the premise that our government and local authorities, are the principal custodians of the well-being of the residents through their provision of public and infrastructural services.

The Chitungwiza official told us without mincing his words that our enquiry on Chitungwiza was misplaced because no one knows what other local authorities are paying for the valuation roll.

Just like that, plain and simple.

Talking about precedence, was this not the same council that publicly stated that Chitungwiza needed around US$600 000 for its master plan.

Was it not their official who told residents during the recent master plan stakeholder engagement exercise that the figure could rise above the $600 000?

Is it not the same council that declared itself broke and sought a partner to fund the master plan to the tune of the above figure?

Curiously, that same council had dumped a consultant who was the sole bidder for the master plan.

In an about turn, the same council reverted to the sole bidder following disagreements with the proposed funder.

All of a sudden the figure for the master plan costs nosedived to $180 000 only to rise to the $190 000 that was settled with the new lead planner.

In such a situation residents and the media can’t be said to be crazy in seeking answers from Chitungwiza.

Community based organisations can also demand the local authorities to account for the financial resources used.

These CBOs have responsibilities of setting Chitungwiza’s  development  agenda and can also demand to be given feedback about the progress of projects being undertaken by the local authority in question.

In simple terms the successes, failure and or delays in taking off of various projects should be reported to stakeholders.

In that light, the stakeholders  have a right to know who is funding the master plan for the broke municipality and why all of a sudden the figures have changed or continued to change.

As the media,we need to question the extent to which fiscal transparency and accountability principles are being adopted by Chitungwiza council.

We will trigger conversations on the role of fiscal transparency and accountability in achieving the national objectives.

In that respect, to what extent, if any is Chitungwiza conforming to the existing legal and institutional frameworks that are expected to foster transparency and accountability, we rightfully ask

This assists all stakeholders to draw lessons from each other’s experiences on how to improve fiscal transparency and accountability.

We are reliably informed that the government has intervened to resolve the crisis at Chitungwiza by funding the master plan.

We welcome such a development and with it comes increased demand for transparency and accountability in the use of public resources allocated and disbursed to lower tiers of government.

In order to facilitate deeper citizen engagements Chitungwiza needs to make a distinct break with the past where other stakeholders had little or no access to information on public financial management.

Research has shown that transparency and accountability are interrelated and mutually reinforcing concepts without which it would be difficult to call public sector entities to account.

It has been noted that Zimbabwe has the necessary policy framework including our Constitution, the Zimbabwe Finance Management Act and Urban and Rural Councils Acts which are expected to foster transparency and accountability.

However, the main challenges are on the implementation and enforcement of the provisions of these legislative frameworks.

This has been the reason why adverse issues and irregularities noted by the Auditor General’s reports including recommendations to address these anomalies have not been addressed by the respective public entities.

There is need to accelerate the roll-out of the financial management information system to local authorities to enhance transparency and accountability.

Dogged enforcement of the constitutional and legal provisions in respect of financial reports, internal controls and audits is therefore critical.

Best practices on transparency and accountability policies and practices should also dovetail with the national context, policy priorities and strategic actions to be taken.

In this regard, we call upon Chitungwiza municipality officials to increase the levels of transparency and accountability in order to enhance the successful implementation of both the master plan and valuation roll.