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Pamela Shumba, Senior Reporter
A GROUP of officials from local authorities in the country on Wednesday started a three-day service level benchmarking peer review visit in Bulawayo to identify successes, learn and improve water supply, waste water and solid waste management.

The peer review is an exchange programme where local authorities assess each other’s performance for purposes of learning and assisting one another in improving service delivery.

The team assessing Bulawayo City Council’s projects, led by acting Harare City Council Town Clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango visited and inspected the council’s facilities, which include Ncema and Criterion waterworks, Ngozi Mine dump site and Aisleby wastewater treatment plants.

The review team was also joined by city fathers and officials from the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe (UCAZ), Commonwealth Local Government Forum and residents associations’ representatives.

Speaking after the tour, Eng Chisango said: “We’re reviewing the quality of services by the Bulawayo City Council as part of our service level benchmarking review programme. We check the infrastructure, water treatment plants, solid waste management, the processes and improvements that have been made over the year.

“The purpose of this programme is to learn from each other and improve service delivery for the benefit of residents,” said Eng Chisango.

He said he was impressed with the processes that the Bulawayo City Council follows before distributing good quality water to its residents.

Acting Bulawayo Town Clerk Mrs Sikhangele Zhou said: “This is a programme where we review each other’s work as local authorities. We have a team from six different local authorities from different departments.

“This programme assists us as to measure our work and compare with others and improve on any service delivery gaps that would have been identified. We decided to embark on this programme realising that we can learn from each other and actually find best practices among ourselves in the country. If we’re weak in water supply, another local authority may have better ideas,” said Mrs Zhou.

She said the programme also gives local authorities an opportunity to measure and introspect on where they’re lacking and influence development plans.

“The programme therefore puts a lot of emphasis on accuracy of data and measuring devices. Every year, the local authorities that are reviewed are expected to have a performance improvement plan to make sure service delivery is improved. This year we have gone a step further and included corporate governance on our indicators because we realised that if our corporate governance is poor, it’s difficult to manage the local authority and services. We’ve also included roads, which we’re starting to compare this year,” said Mrs Zhou.

She added that the peer reviewers will look at their data in the offices and continue today before giving them a full report on the exercise. — @pamelashumba1