The Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC)-run Bulawayo council has promised to run the city’s affairs in a non-partisan manner for the benefit of all citizens.
Ward 4 councillor David Coltart, who was speaking on behalf of the councillors, said they are hopeful that the council will work well with the all-ruling-party provincial council during their term in office.
“Zanu-PF has a 100 percent representation on the provincial council. We are yet to see what happens as a result of that. Is the central government going to seek to channel resources through that body or is it going to support the directly elected representatives of the people, namely this council? That is a battle we still have to face,” he said.
“But ultimately, we need to ask ourselves if we are interested in developing Bulawayo. When I was Minister of Education, I said it should be the least partisan ministry, I will say the same about the running of the city. All of us need clean water, all of us need infrastructure and decent housing and health facilities irrespective of what our political affiliations are and that is how we intend to run this council. We want to run it for the benefit of all our citizens.”
Coltart said they intend to engage all business owners, regardless of their political affiliation, to forge a way forward for the development of the city.
“Our fear is that the central government, given their history, may seek to put obstacles in our way, they may seek to deprive us of the funding that we may need and the only way to overcome that is to have a broad consensus with the citizens, not being partisan,” he said.
“We need to sit down with Zanu-PF owners of business, CCC owners of business, as well as non-partisan business owners so that we build a consensus and we can be able to reconstruct our city in the best interest of the citizens of Bulawayo.”
