ZwNews Chief Correspondent
The Harare Residents Trust (HRT) has called on the central and local government to take a critical eye on the causes of the recent cholera outbreak that left more than a dozen people dead, and many others hospitalised.
The epidemic, has recently led to running battles in Harare as police try to drive vendors away from the city, whose acts have been associated with the breeding ground of the cholera bacteria. Given the current socio-economic environment, trying to contain the deadly disease, is being precariously balanced, between the need to seek livelihood on the part of the vendors, and on the other hand, the state maintaining that vendors should do so in designated places.
These alternative places include the proposed sites corner Dieppe Road and Seke Road in Graniteside, and an open space near the City Sports Centre; be that as it may, these places still need a holistic face lift in terms of standards. They need facilities like toilets, shelters, and table platforms on which the vendors could display their wares, as well as enough space to accommodate the city’s thousands of vendors.
Meanwhile, the HRT in association with the ‘We Pay You Deliver’ Consortium recently carried out a research which established that whilst the vendors are partly to blame on the spread of cholera, there is need for a critical analysis as to why there is poor service delivery, an element largely to blame for the pandemic.
The research showed that the local authority has been failing to perform well for a number of reasons that include, being owed millions in unpaid rates by the residents, companies, and the central government at large. HRT says if this is not addressed, then it would be difficulty for the nation to arrest the disease.
HRT says the decommissioning of boreholes in Glen View, shows that the spread of the disease also had something to do with the underground water mixing up with broken down underground sewage pipes that had not been replaced since independence.
It has been largely argued that the government should create the environment for the economy to thrive, amid improved capacity utilisation in businesses so that the thousands of jobless citizens can be absorbed into the formal job market.
