Former Gwanda mayor Jastone Mazhale says he will serve the interests of residents should he win in the March 26 by-elections.
Mazhale was Ward 7 councillor and mayor before he was recalled from office last year.
Speaking to CITE in an interview, he said he was optimistic of reclaiming his seat.
MDC-Alliance candidate Vusani Mhlanga, noted that there is need to improve the relationship between the council and residents in order to improve service delivery.
Mhlanga said should he be elected into office, he would make sure that priority service delivery issues will be addressed promptly, depending on the availability of funds.
“As we can see we are only one and a half years towards the end of the current term and that is quite some limited time to make major challenges. If I get into office now I would address issues of water and litter collection which are haunting the residents,” Mhlanga said.
“There is also the issue of limited space to allow youths to start projects which will enable them to sustain themselves. Ward 7 is a very old ward and it has limited space. There is need to negotiate with council management to allow young people to have space so that they may run income generating projects to curb them from abusing drugs.”
A representative of Gwanda Residents Association, Siduduzile Masilela, highlighted that the youth need to be given space to run their projects.
She said there is a park in ward 7 and due to the absence of a councilor they have have not been able to do due diligence to the matter.
“The park is public space and we intended to negotiate with council to partition it to the youths. Of late there are rumors that someone wants to lease it as private property which is not fair. We were not even consulted as residents. We implore the incoming councilor to address this issue,” Masilela said.
“We also need the issue of water to be looked into. We endure water cuts with no communication whatsover and the council blames ZINWA for it. At least if there is sufficient representation of residents then such challenges can be effectively dealt with.”
