ZIMBABWE has a total of around 88 local authorities, including 28 urban councils and 60 rural district councils.
City councils are the highest tier of urban local governance and are responsible for the country’s major cities such as Bulawayo and Harare.
The rest of the urban council arrangements preside over larger towns (which are not cities), smaller towns and in the case of the lowest-tier urban structures (local boards), smaller urban settlements which have potential for growth.
On the other hand, Rural District Councils (RDCs) occur outside urban areas and are responsible for the welfare and development of rural regions of the country. Rural local government structures are the primary democratic (elected) systems for local governance at the district level in rural areas, with councillors being elected.
The core functions of local government include the provision of clean water and affordable housing, maintenance of storm water drainage, refuse collection and disposal, sanitation), and the provision and maintenance of roads.
They also have secondary functions, which entail the maintenance of security and safety, provision of education and healthcare services, provision of parks and recreation, and spatial planning, among other things.
For local governments, their regular income flows are drawn from earnings for rendering services, etc), property rates and annual transfers from the Ministry of Finance.
Currently, several Zimbabwean municipalities are struggling with operational and financial viability. The state of roads, water services, sanitation, and healthcare, are telling. The portion of these essential services within the purview of local governments is in a really bad shape and it is local communities, who are bearing the brunt of these challenges.
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The capital city, Harare and several other local governments across the country are notorious for financial mismanagement, including poor adherence to accounting best practices such as record keeping.
This article delves into causes for poor local governance and offers proposals on how to resolve them.
Causes of municipal distress
Rural to urban migration is accelerating and in some cases, its pace can be higher than the country’s population growth rate and the capacity of urban municipalities to remain viable.
The migration also implies that rural municipalities are losing their most skilled residents as they search for opportunities in cities, reinforcing municipal crises in both rural and urban areas.
Overall, municipalities have been noted to have low levels of capital expenditure. Anecdotal evidence shows that the state of roads, dams, water treatment facilities, clinics, etc, is not in the best shape.
This reflects a stagnation in infrastructure spending, while the population has been growing. So roads, water, sewage and electricity infrastructure may be rendered inadequate, as a result.
Weak internal controls can also be problematic. In some cases, managers and staff, who preside over municipal procurement processes, lack appropriate technical insights and competencies, leading to suboptimal results.
Projects, which support basic services, for instance, require highly technical expertise to execute them or understand tender specifications. Whereas, if municipal technical directors are not qualified engineers, with the necessary practical experience, planned infrastructure projects are likely to be inadequately specified, awarded to suboptimal providers and poorly (or not) executed.
Municipal compliance is poor and corruption is commonplace. Procurement contracts are sometimes awarded to councillors, municipal employees, their close family members, or other state officials.
False declarations by suppliers, and unfair and uncompetitive procurement processes are typical. A causal relationship has been proven to exist, between fraud, corruption and service delivery satisfaction.
That means when fraud and corruption increase, they have a negative impact on service delivery satisfaction.
Due to poor revenue management, at an aggregate level, some municipalities have insufficient cash to fund their operations. This reinforces their underspending on capital budgets, inadequate asset management spending (maintenance and repairs), and expanded outstanding debts and creditors.
Non-payment by debtors, low debt recovery, and ineffective municipal billing and credit control systems, spur this decline. The country's turbulent economic performance also triggers the inability to pay, whilst curtailing the growth of new accounts (customers).
Proposals for improvement
In some cases, executive management restructuring will be critical, in order to prevent failure or total collapse. This is because incumbent executive teams may struggle to introduce or sustain new methods or reforms, required to turn around the municipalities.
Senior management changes will, therefore, have to be effected. Broader restructurings, which include the shedding of excess or redundant employees, also have a role to play, where applicable.
Misconduct, negligence or incompetence exhibited by municipal staff should be met with immediate consequence-management. If there are no repercussions for wrongdoing, that leaves municipal administrators and employees with limited motivation for choosing integrity and professionalism.
In that case, the relaxation of labour laws might need to start with those which cover municipal contracts. That means special labour laws, which make it easy to hire and dismiss employees will be essential.
If possible, a significant portion of the remuneration of municipal administrators (including politicians) and employees should be dependent on their performance (verifiable achievement of predetermined outcomes for each job description).
Failure to meet predetermined work targets would, therefore, translate into lower salaries, whilst surpassing them would lead to the payment of performance bonuses.
Technological responses to declining municipal revenues, high outstanding debts and poor asset control, should be attempted. This includes the accelerated transition to smart electricity and water meters.
Additionally, adopting technological asset management solutions, which provide real-time information on the state of municipal assets, their location, when they are due for maintenance or repairs and whether they have been tempered with (by natural wear and tear, criminals or arsonists), will also prove judicious.
For the sake of prioritisation, the most valuable assets such as electricity grid infrastructure, water and sanitation pumps and pipes, and railway infrastructure, should receive the earliest (first) deployments of such innovations.
Digital transformation will also significantly address the following inefficiencies and challenges within municipal administrative structures — the duplication of processes and procedures, insufficient segregation of duties, red tape (delays), inadequate internal controls, non transparent systems, fraud, ghost workers, etc.
Digital tools can be used to create a balance between the delicate requirements of accountability, transparency and efficiency (quick turnaround times), pertaining to procurement processes.
This proposed technology-based supply chain management (SCM) system, should be easy to use, efficient, quick, transparent and accommodative (inclusive) of all types of suppliers. It should be designed in such a manner that it cuts down on bureaucratic procedures and delays that have been holding back legacy SCM systems.
Data on non-sensitive municipal financial transactions (perhaps over 95% of them) should be made open for the public to scrutinise. The office of the Auditor-General (AG) should also have real-time access to 100% of that data, with employees in the AG's office assigned to make follow-ups on daily or weekly transactions, raising suspicious and odd transactions for further engagement with municipal officials.
This proposal may seem like an overkill, but the current municipal crises demand it. The local community (households and businesses) should have real-time access to such data as well.
If they identify suspicious transactions they should be able to refer them to requisitely skilled community leaders, who can in-turn pass the significant ones (transactions) to the respective statutory institutions (the Auditor-General, Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission, etc), for further perusal.
It is, indeed, the same residents who end up bearing the brunt of municipal incompetence and mismanagement. Therefore, their increased participation will provide comprehensive checks and balances to the prevailing municipal systems.
Such increased transparency may immediately increase the professionalism and integrity of municipalities, even before the data is interrogated. In order to reduce management turnover and high vacancy rates at the top of municipal administrative structures, the government should consider subsidising the wages of top executives.
This will result in them (executives) getting market-linked remuneration rates, thereby, curtailing skills erosion and dearth (deficiency) in local government.
Although the endeavour might appear expensive, the rewards are likely to outsize the costs. That means the mayoral committee and all senior municipal management roles should be offered competitive market rate wages and benefits (similar to the private sector).
Where necessary, the government may even attempt to surpass market rates. Since competitive remuneration will then be provided, the government should concurrently tighten entry requirements for senior job roles. Hiring should strictly conscript qualified personnel and there must not be room for the appointment of individuals whose skills and capabilities fall short.
Attraction and retention of the appropriate skills will increase efficiency and bolster institutional memory. Eventually, the outsourcing of services to private sector experts would be curtailed, resulting in considerable savings on municipal budgets.
The poorest municipal financial statements should be referred to the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission, and other pertinent agencies.
The Auditor-General’s office should be mandated to make follow-ups on steps taken to secure the conviction of municipal administrators and politicians behind the dysfunctional financial records.
An office of “value-for-money adjudicator” or “market value adjudicator” housed in the department of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Local Government, or the Auditor-General’s office, should be established, so that it verifies whether procurement contracts and transactions are being done in a manner consistent with market rates.
This will work towards reducing tender inflation (inflation on existing contracts), overpricing on new contracts and other forms of corruption.
Whistle-blowers, who provide reliable information that results in the prosecution or conviction of corrupt municipal staff, or thieves and vandals of infrastructure, should be financially rewarded by the State.
Where theft was averted or stolen funds redeemed, they should get a percentage value of total savings to be realised by the municipality, from the upending (avoidance) of the disaster. This may cost a little more at the outset, but its effectiveness will produce a crime-free long-run (future), with minimal costs of that nature (reward for information on crime).
Some municipalities with extremely low levels of economic activity, should be turned into special economic zones, whose private sector companies pay less obligations in the form of corporate and other taxes.
That would attract more domestic and foreign investment in such areas, while providing jobs to households and greater revenue flows to respective municipalities.
National policies which promote economic growth will also draw more investment into the country.
Concurrently, they will add more financially capable residents (households and businesses) who have the capacity to pay for municipal services, even on a commercial basis.
- Tutani is a political economy analyst. —[email protected].
