A political legitimacy and leadership wrangle within the Movement for Democratic Change Party has seen many elected members of the MDC Alliance Party led by Nelson Chamisa being recalled from their respective posts by MDC-T interim leader, Thokozani Khupe.
Former Councillor for Ward 7 and Mayor for Gwanda, Mr Justone Mazhale was recalled and replaced with Mr Njabulo Siziba. Since Mr Siziba is not from Ward 7, the councillor position has been left vacant in the ward.
Ward 7 youths have lamented the dismal of their former councillor, noting that lack of representation has resulted in some of the issues that need councillor’s attention being left unattended.
Youths are of the view that the recalling of Mr Mazhale paralyzed the council functions since a councilor is needed to represent people`s concerns.
“Not having a councillor has turned out to be a disadvantage; no one attends to the ward challenges since no one plays the role of a councillor, it’s been a week now without electricity and of which our complaints turn out ineffective without a councilor responsible for representing us. We have not had a ward meeting for some time now of which our matters remain unaddressed,” said Fortune Ndlovu from Ward 7.
“We are faced with different challenges of which we need someone such as a Ward councillor who can listen to our concerns. If the councillor was available, we would have told him about our various challenges and found the way forward effective immediately. Now things are taking forever to happen in our ward,” another Ward 7 youth lamented.
“Honestly this is shameful. Some things are just hard to believe, I mean we vote for leaders to lead us and they are expelled just like that. Does this mean our voices do not matter? If these recalls are inline with the constitution of Zimbabwe, then the clause that says so is controversial. This is the reason it is essential that people follow and make their voices heard when things like constitutional amendments are ongoing. If you look closely, all the recalled councillors and MPs were not expelled because they were not delivering as expected or because they were accused of particular misconducts such as corruption, but it was only political motivated. It had nothing to do with the interests of the people,” another Ward 7 youth said.
So far people of Ward 7 have been instructed to purchase their own transformer if they want electricity services back on but without a leader or councillor, it becomes difficult to organise such matters.
Mat South youths questioned the interference of national leaders on local governance as it hampers council operations. For them, it slows down service delivery as national leaders dictate instructions despite the elected councillors being empowered to run local issues without any interference from the government as per the council laws. According to the residents, interference from national leaders muzzles the working place for local leaders to perform their duties comprehensively. In essence, communities have the right to vote into office their councillors, town clerks and other local leaders without any interference from national leaders or the central government.
Former Gwanda mayor, who was also the councillor for Ward 7, Mr Justone Mazhale understood the challenges faced by Ward 7 since the time he was recalled.
“With no council representative, some Ward 7 issues have been left unintended. Now there is no link between ward 7 and Council. It is very hard as a former councillor because people still come to me with their grievances and I am not in good position to assist. I still try and take issues to the Council but now am an ordinary citizen and people do not understand that. And the way these recalls were done they violated the democratic rights of people because a councillor is elected by people and the recalls also affect the fundamental rights of people such as the right to water and electricity street lights,” said Mr Mazhale. Residents who were pinning their hopes on by-lections that were slated for December were sent back to square one when the government announced that by-elections were being cancelled as a way of mitigating the spread of the pandemic. Cancelling by-elections means that several wards will remain without Councilors for a longer period, adding salt to the already bleeding would of residents.
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