Bulawayo councilors have alleged that there is an unfair distribution of resources by council management thereby stalling service delivery in some suburbs.
Speaking during a full council meeting, Wednesday, Ward 22 councillor Rodney Jele complained that some suburbs are given priority over others when it comes to allocating resources meant for development.
Cllr Jele made reference to the ongoing road rehabilitation project across residential suburbs saying an equal number of people were allocated to work on resurfacing roads but in some suburbs, workers spend days without receiving material to use.
“We lobbied community groups which are supposed to complete their work in 30 days but due to unavailability of material they fail to meet their targets and get paid little money. For example, in Ward 23, 12 workers covered 50km but in Ward 22 only 22km was covered by the same number of people,” said Cllr Jele.
“Your Worship it’s not like these people are lazy, it is just a matter of unfair distribution of resources. We implore that there be fairness when distributing the city’s resources so that everyone can benefit equally, especially those who would have been contracted.”
Meanwhile, Ward 4 councilor Silas Chigora condemned the quality of the job being done by contractors tasked to make road markings around the city.
He complained the markings are not durable as they wear out barely a few months after being painted.
Cllr Chigora urged the council to address the issue as a matter of urgency citing money was being wasted through redoing road markings every now and then.
Cllr Chigora said the contractor’s failure to make durable road makings was unjustifiable as some markings that were made long ago are still visible on some streets.
“The road markings that we are doing in the city are disappearing within a short space of time. We have raised this issue before and we are wondering what is happening. For example, if you go to fort street now, there were markings that were done during trade fair and now they have worn out,” said Cllr Chigora.
“As council we tend to wonder why we are spending so much money on substandard jobs. We cannot be doing double jobs all the time. Roads that were marked years ago are still in good shape. If they start wearing away before the rainy season starts, what are we going to do about it? We need to find out if it Is the contractors we engaged or it’s the type of paint that is being used.”
