Victor Kunonga invites Sam Mataure & Enock Piroro

Victor Kunonga, the legendary afro jazz maestro calls on his highly gifted friends and jazz spitfires – Sam Mataure (drums) and Enock Piroro (bass guitar) for an enthralling afro Jam session, packed with the unexpected.

Bring your dancing shoes!

Alliance Francaise, 328 Herbert Chitepo Avenue, Harare
Friday 21 January 2011
8pm till late.
CC: $10
For more information contact: Tsungi Zvobgo on 0774 433 209 or email tsungiz [at] gmail [dot] com

The City of Harare is currently preparing the 2011 city budget. The below letter from the Harare Residents’ Trust outlines where you can review the budget and how to contribute your comments on it.

Dear Resident,

This letter serves to advise you that on 30 November 2010, and at Town House, around 4.30pm, the City of Harare, through the Finance and Development Committee Chairperson Ruth Rufaro Kavunika, tabled the 2011 City Budget before the full council meeting. This means that you as a resident have to take appropriate action to safeguard your financial interests in the coming year. The City of Harare has proposed increases in water rates, rentals and seeks to maintain the rates of clinic charges at 2010 levels, among others. There are several other proposals that you need to be aware of. You have to plan ahead, and the budget is the best policy statement to guide you.

The Harare Residents’ Trust advises you to take time to go and inspect the proposed budget at Town House, and all District Offices immediately. In terms of the Urban Councils’ Act (Chapter 29:15), once you have inspected the proposed budget, it is your right to make necessary comments on the budget, either rejecting/opposing the proposed charges or accepting them.

If you object to the budget, it is your responsibility to write your objection letter addressed to the Town Clerk, at Town House, specifying your reasons for rejecting the proposals, indicating your physical home address within the 30-day stipulated period. You are safe and it is within your rights to do so. Once thirty (30) objections are lodged, the City of Harare has to revise the proposals downwards before finally approving the budget.

This is the only major opportunity to the citizen to comment on the budget, otherwise if you do not use your right at law to make objections or inspect the budget, you have no one but yourself to blame when the budget is implemented beginning January 2011. The City will simply implement the high rates if you do not raise your voice.

When you write your objections, make two copies, which have to be both stamped at Town House, to serve as evidence that you submitted them. Submit the other copy to the HRT as a record so that at the end of the 30-day period of inspection, the organisation can also verify that nothing outside the law is done by the council, since there is no water tight method of verification and adjudication that safeguards the interests of residents.

The HRT will keep you informed on the budget making process until it is finally approved. Thank you for being a responsible citizen.

You can reach the Harare Residents’ Trust on 0712-500402, 0774-354201 or 0772-869294 or email hretrust [at] yahoo [dot] com

The above two notices in Friday’s Herald caught my eye. The first makes a lot of sense to me. Harare has a huge water problem – as evidenced by the lack of water in our three-storey office block this week, as just one example. As the notice points out, “the city’s water supply infrastructure cannot satisfy the current demand. This is further worsened by infrastructure breakdowns and power outages.”

Surely, then, the city would recognise the need to fundraise and invest in infrastructure and power maintenance, repairs and development?

Meanwhile, a second notice warns suppliers against providing fire equipment without a SAZS Seal of Approval (Standards Association of Zimbabwe). This, the notice explains, is “aimed at protecting the public from substandard fire equipment that has found its way into the country.”

But why has this substandard fire equipment suddenly found its way across our borders? Because of a mad rush by motorists to get fire extinguishers, among other items, in time for the 1 December deadline of the new Road Traffic Regulations.

We’ve been looking for a month and have yet to find an SAZ approved fire extinguisher at any local hardware. How is the City of Harare going to warn suppliers of this issue? How will it enforce it, and if they do collect fines, how will that revenue be allocated?

I’m reminded of Thandi’s waste not, want not blog. What about fining people for using hose pipes, using that money to invest in water supply requirements, and dropping the whole fire extinguishers in vehicles issue altogether?

Two friends and I entered Harare’s Got Talent on Saturday night, with a pantomime dance performance of Kenny Roger’s The Gambler. We were last minute cowboys, really. It started off as a joke, a bit of a dare one evening, but suddenly there were Auditions. And rehearsals. An official run through. A compulsory warm up. And a Performance.

My co-workers were quite game about our “board room” [read foyer] getting taken over for a rehearsal space. One of them even got roped into writing up our blocking, and taking notes on our props list. I was a bit worried our land lord would come and investigate, but 17 “know when to hold ‘em” choruses later we were still safe.

The blocking document was titled The Meddle, and included things like:

• J and A do the hop
• J shoots A
• A plays tambourine
• A and J show their aces
• Chorus: Go crazy
• A shoots K

And the props included:

• Bottle stick
• Cards
• 2 x Guns
• 3 x Cowboy hats

The show took place at Harare’s Rep’s Theatre – like the snap of the marquis above, it’s shabby on the outside, well meaning enough, on the inside, but stuck in the same bygone era that Harare’s post offices and government buildings seem to still be in.

There were a good 45 acts or so – a motley assortment of novices and veterans, across a range of ages and talents. I overheard one dancer ask another why there were so many singers. I overheard one musician ask another why non musicians were in the show. The people who knew they were neither singers nor dancers knew better than to posit why their numbers were so low. They were the only people I overheard asking – why are we here again? Go figure.

In the end, guitarist singer and song writer Christessa took second place, and Mumbai Jackson [think Bollywood meets Thriller] won first prize, with a three-person dance to original choreography. In the process, scores of people got first hand experience with the behind the behind the scenes elements of a performance – the tension and off stage drama, as well as the gritty, unglamourous sweat and frustration that it takes to pull something like that off. And the audience of 400 or so got exposed to performers they’ll be hoping to see more of in future, and others – like the last minute cowboys – that they’ll know they want to avoid.

I’ve just read the City of Harare’s Special Investigations Committee’s report on City of Harare’s land sales, leases and exchanges. It’s a shocking tale of corruption and abuse of power “by officials, unscrupulous business people and cunning politicians,” carried out over a period of years at the highest levels of municipal and national government.

The report implicates high profile personalities such as businessman Philip Chiyangwa, former Harare Mayor Sekesai Makwavarara and Minister of Local Government Ignatius Chombo in illegal and unauthorised deals in which they misappropriated City resources for personal gain.

As a subscriber who has read it said:

I don’t know whether the Combined Harare Residents’ Association (CHRA) or Harare Residents’ Trust (HRT) are alive, because if they were, the Harare Land Scandal would have triggered a MASSIVE piece-full [yes, I didn't get the spelling of peace wrong] uprising against the system by now. Our activism is DEAD. Check out the attached report and if you don’t cry, you’re not of this planet.

Read the report now, and send your comments to CHRA and the HRT, and cc info@kubatana.net

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of muttering on the streets about the US $152,000 Mercedes Benz recently acquired by Harare Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda.

Now, it turns out, the City of Harare has also bought two Prados, valued at as much as US $190,000 together.

According to a statement from the Combined Harare Residents Association, the money spent on these three vehicles would be enough “to procure water treatment chemicals that can supply the entire city of Harare with clean water for almost half a year.”

We asked our SMS subscribers what they thought about the Mayoral Benz. We received over 50 replies from across Zimbabwe. A few subscribers were supportive of the new vehicle, but overall the responses were quite condemning. We share some of these responses below:

A pity he already forgets we have no water. Our robots don’t work. Our roads are bad. Shame on him.

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You’re just jealous. He deserves it.

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That’s shit. These high profile people are not concerned about the masses.

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Why r we not surprised! They will never change there bad habits, Never!

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This is madness and lack of direction when City is losing lot of treated water

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It simply confirms that Zanu Pf and the MDC are one and the same. They are all after riches and nothing else. We are alone in the struggle against poverty!

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Residence should boycott paying rates and water bills till the services improves

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Water first be4 luxuries

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It is very bad. People in Kuwadzana are taking ten hours in a queue to fetch water from a borehole.

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Lets all refuse to pay for bills charged by parastatals and local authorities coz the money is going to pay for luxuries and hefty salaries and no services.

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This is quite pathetic. How cum that they use such an amt for nothing yet they sey the gvt is bankrupt & fail to pay civil servants & leave our cities in a poor state.