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Vusumuzi Dube, Municipal Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has passed a controversial resolution that will see all councillors and senior council staffers getting state-of-the-art tablets and WiFi installed at their houses.

This follows complaints by councillors that their laptops- which were also purchased by the local authority- were too bulky to carry when coming for council meetings. The tablets will be purchased at a cost of $40 000.

According to the latest council report, councillors and senior council officials should have all their computers replaced after every three years as per the local authority’s ICT policy.

“The financial director (Mr Kimpton Ndimande) reported that council’s policy on Information Communication Technologies (ICT) equipment stated that replacement of laptops and tablets would occur after every three years and in line with that, the laptops for councillors were due for replacement.

“Previously councillors were using laptops which had proved to be bulky to carry when coming for meetings. The thrust now was for councillors to carry gadgets that were easy to carry and more portable, hence the need to purchase tablets for them as a replacement for the laptops,” reads part of the report.

All the 29 councillors as well as senior council officials and officials within the public relations section will have WiFi installed at their homes. “It should be pointed out that currently tablets were not able to link to the main database, although in their daily work councillors rarely needed to access that main database. Tablets would make it easier for the councillors to carry around and also it would be easy for councillors to open and access documents or e-mails.

“These would still have WiFi installed in their homes which would make access to the internet easier also. There were also some senior staff members who were yet to receive tablets for use on council business and these also needed to be issued with tablets,” reads the report.

When the councillors were issued with the laptops in 2013 they became an immediate laughing stock during a full council meeting when the majority of them seemingly struggled to use the gadgets.

— @vusadb