Bulawayo councillors have expressed frustration over a perceived lack of implementation of key policies, with one councillor, Dumisani Nkomo, describing the body as a “glorified debating society.”
Speaking at a recent full council meeting, Councilor Nkomo raised concerns that proposals from months and even years ago have failed to materialize, undermining the council’s primary role as policymakers and oversight agents.
“My worry is lack of implementation,we need to see movement in terms of that, because our primary role is that of policy makers,” he said.
“So let us have this thing that we talked about 2 years ago being implemented because we cannot talk about new measures if we are failing to actually implement what we talked about two years ago,” Nkomo said.
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Councilor Nkomo highlighted several examples of proposals that have seen no progress. These include a “punity fine” for littering discussed in the previous month, a two-year-old proposal from Councilor Moyo about compelling businesses to have bins, and a given bin campaign.
He insisted that the council must move beyond debate to action, warning, “otherwise this becomes a public speaking pageantry.”
He further expressed concern that councilors’ suggestions may not be taken seriously, noting that in the current meeting, there was no report on the matters that were previously raised.
“Let us have things being implemented,unless we are not being taken seriously as councilors,” he said.
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