NATURALLY, I read Cont Mhlanga’s article Bulawayo Mayor: Are You Sure? (Southern Eye September 25) with keen interest.
MARTIN K MOYO MAYOR OF BULAWAYO
It is healthy that as citizens of this beautiful city, we engage in a continuous discourse, conversation and dialogue on all those things that affect us.
We must constantly cross-pollinate, feed and check our ideas against those of fellow citizens.
We have a common destiny and we need each other’s support as we trudge the arduous terrain in its quest.
Mhlanga’s analysis of the marginalisation problem of Bulawayo in particular and Matabeleland in general, is accurate.
I agree that we have had periods of disconnect with the government to our own region to the city’s detriment. The scars to show for it are plainly visible.
These are things we saw, things we hear in everyday conversations and when we look around us, the industrial scrapyard that is Bulawayo sticks out like a sore thumb in testimony of that disconnect.
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Yet, too, we must acknowledge that the deindustrialisation of Bulawayo was an integral part of a general national malaÏse.
Other cities and towns, even in the favoured regions of Mashonaland, were also affected the same, perhaps to a lesser extent, as we are wont to assume.
My own mayorship comes in the wake of the July 31 disaster. MDC-T, to which I belong, lost big time and we are back to the drawing board.
There are grounds to suspect another disconnect.
The apprehension comes from the acerbic statements attributed to the State President (Robert Mugabe) when he said Bulawayo and Harare should not come to him when they have problems because they voted for the MDC-T.
This must have been said in yet another moment of madness and I suppose that will not be.
In hind sight, those in power must be embarrassed by it! Elections are about offering the nationals of a country a democratic choice and they cannot be punished for making choices from their heart.
That the people of Bulawayo voted for the MDC-T to the total exclusion of Zanu PF obviously riles the ruling party as indicated by the unfriendly statements attributed to Mugabe that I have already alluded to.
That is a natural fear, given what has gone on before.
However, we cannot willingly celebrate this disconnect, let alone encourage or promote it.
We have a duty as citizens of Bulawayo to keep the city integrated into the rest of the country.
We have a duty to claim our fair share of the national cake. If there is need to knock on the doors of Davies Hall because we think Zanu PF provincial chairman Callistus Ndlovu can help, so be it.
After all, those people at Davies Hall are all Bulawayans.
They are as much interested in the survival and revival of their home town as much as we are.
That is not to say we will succeed, but even when we have failed it shall be said we tried!
We do congratulate Eunice Sandi-Moyo on her appointment as the Minister of State for Bulawayo Metropolitan Provincial Affairs.
We are not privy to her brief, but as a daughter of Bulawayo herself, we share with her a common interest, a common destiny and I believe we have common aspirations for the city.
Perhaps we can cultivate a mutually beneficial relationship with her and make her available as a link with the government in Harare. On our part, I pledge unreserved cooperation and support for her.
I would like to apologise unreservedly if, by omission, I seemed to imply that roads and street lights are more important than people.
But, let me also say, I have not produced a document called Martin Moyo’s Vision of Bulawayo To Be, which some of us seem to have in their possession.
Someone must have asked about this and I answered off the cuff. Obviously, different people listen for different things and hear the same thing differently.
Council’s core business is the provision of services. In addition to the services Mhlanga quotes from my speech, council also provides health services: We run clinics, educational services.
We run schools and youth vocational training centres, we run parks, swimming pools and libraries among other things.
All these services are not provided as an end in themselves. They are designed to enhance the enjoyment of life by all residents of Bulawayo, young and old.
As a new mayor, I am prone to be overzealous and assume responsibilities that are beyond council.
We have a few State roads running through the city, namely Plumtree Road which comes into town as Main Street, Beitbrige Road which comes into town as Leopold Takawira, Victoria Falls Road and Airport Road.
The rest of the roads totalling approximately 2 400km are council roads. We have a responsibility to keep them in a good state of repair.
The provision of bulk water from the dams to the treatment works at Lower Ncema Dam is the responsibility of Zinwa.
From Lower Ncema Treatment, we pump treated water to the Tuli reservoir for onward transmission to residents.
We also pump raw water from Lower Ncema to the Criterion Water Works as council.
The Nyamandlovu Aquifer boreholes are a responsibility of Zinwa, but council has an interest: We have provided council security personnel and even accommodation for these people.
When the boreholes break down, we facilitate their speedy repair and we second personnel to help with the repairs.
The Gwayi-Shangani project is a national project, but still we are the ultimate beneficiaries and naturally we have an interest.
Yes, I can see the wall. More than that, I have peered over the wall to see what is in the yard! I know what is in the yard.
We must appreciate that for Bulawayo’s fortunes to be turned around, we will need to make a holistic analysis of our situation and decide on remedies.
We cannot take piecemeal approaches as these tend to cure the symptoms rather than the cause.
I firmly believe that our city would greatly benefit from a revival of the economy.
When we attend to the resuscitation of our factories in particular and business in general, our populace will be taken off the streets to gainful employment.
The revived firms will remit income to council via taxes and levies. More revenue will accrue to council as our people will then be able to pay their dues to council from the incomes they will earn.
We cannot solve the infrastructural problems of council without solving the problems of industry.
This council will be engaging business and industry to hear from them what role we can play as council to overcome their challenges.
Council has no money, but perhaps there are things council can do to promote the revival of industry, but that will come out when we engage all stakeholders namely, industry, commerce and residents in a purposeful dialogue.
Together we cannot fail.
