By Misheck Shambare
The efforts by the Harare City Council to convert Harare into a world class city by 2025 is a dream yet to come true considering the harsh economic conditions the country has been experiencing at the moment.
HCC has been advocating for a cleaner city for a long time but with the declining of economic situation in the country it has been difficult for them to be successful in their operations.
Harare’s City Council says a World Class City is one that effective in urban planning and management, decentralization policies and appropriate institutions, a system that creates equality.
With vendors that have sprouted the city of the dwindling economic conditions, rubbish is now all over and big dumping sites have been created which will be difficult to clear.
As we are now a decade before the deadline, of the year 2025 one may think that there is still a lot of time for the city to create and manage wastes and buildings for a world class city.
Harare Mayor Chancellor Benard Manyenyeni through his Facebook page said they are working on an evaluation study of these prospects by interested stakeholders.
The mayor added that HCC cannot go alone on improving the city to a world class but needs participation of various stake holders.
“The status is not based on Council alone,” he said.
“It requires opportunities for all, participation of civil society, elected local officials, a favorable business environment, access to basic amenities and public transport and mobility,”
However they are a lot of modalities in terms of how the HCC is run by the officials who have been accused of being corrupt.
Officials in the HCC have been highly fingered in awarding themselves hefty perks on themselves at the expense of service delivery in the city.
Manyenyeni said most world class cities boast of one or two key ingredients world-class residents, governments, businesses and economies.
“We are unique in parking the entire expectations with council alone,” he said.
The public shot down HCC council on making Harare a world class city saying that it is not achievable.
Karreb Parkoma said the world class city status is not achievable any time soon.
“Not in the next 100 years, we are in stone age now city fathers and there is no coming back,” he said.
Harare Residents Trust (HRT) through their Facebook page said they are not convinced that the World Class City Status is well thought out as a strategy of improving the livelihoods of the citizens of Harare.
“Firstly, a reading of the October 2004 Turnaround Strategy and the Vision 2025 Strategic Plan will show that the authors were not thinking of any improvements but creating great opportunities to make money for individuals,” wrote HRT
Responding to Harare Mayor, HRT said “The October 2004 Turnaround Strategy says ‘to achieve world class city by 2015’ and before it has been evaluated and interrogated, the City of Harare then came up with 2025 Vision, which has suffered from the same fate of being low on stakeholder participation, and very narrow in scope and futuristic projections.”
