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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
THE Hwange Residents’ Association (HRA) has approached Hwange Local Board (HLB) seeking to partner the local authority in ensuring transparency and accountability in the provision of services.

HRA wants to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the local board.

HRA coordinator Mr Fidelis Chima said the move was motivated by reports of corrupt activities in the previous council resulting in 10 councillors being arraigned before the courts last year for criminal abuse of office.

This was after the councillors allegedly awarded a tender to an undeserving Bulawayo company.

The councillors were however found not guilty after a full trial at the Hwange magistrates’ court and residents now want to be a watchdog of the local authority to enhance transparency and accountability.

“We recently petitioned the local board because the previous councillors and council officials were always in and out of the courts instead of concentrating on development.

“We have home seekers who have been paying service fees for their stands since 2011 but no work has been done.

“Right now people are not happy because council is changing goal posts and demanding that people pay more money despite the fact that they were charged $920 each for servicing. These are some of the reasons why we want to monitor the local board,” he said.

“As HRA we have come up with a pact between ourselves and HLB so that we agree on a system that will improve transparency and accountability.

“We are in the process of coming up with a MoU and we are only waiting for the new councillors to be inaugurated.”

Mr Chima said they were working in collaboration with the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (Bupra) and Transparency International Zimbabwe.

He said workshops are already lined up to train residents in all 14 wards on good corporate governance so that they are able to detect corruption.

HLB secretary Mr Ndumiso Mdlalose confirmed that the residents association had approached the local authority but said nothing tangible had been agreed on.

“They showed interest but I can’t comment now because we are yet to see how their ideas can assist council in the execution of its mandate,” he said.

@ncubeleon