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Patrick Chitumba in Masvingo
LOCAL authorities have a critical role to play in the attainment of the provincial Gross Domestic Product (GDP) targets and socio-economic aspirations under the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS-1).

NDS-1 is the Government’s economic blueprint running from 2021 to 2025 and is anchored on devolution, decentralisation and prudent use of national resources for the benefit of all citizens.

It is the second step in the Second Republic’s thrust to attain an upper middle-income economy by 2030 and is a successor to the Transitional Stabilisation Programme.

Addressing GCC councillors, members of the management, workers council representatives, residents association representatives, business sector representatives and other stakeholders attending a three- day strategic planning workshop aimed at assisting council set its strategic agenda and firm road map for the coming years in Masvingo last week, Mr Felix Mukosera from the department of public sector reforms and management in the office of the President and Cabinet, said there was a link between the NDS-1, the Vision 2030 and Gweru City Council (GCC) strategic planning.

“The NDS-1 blueprint is something that is practical and has timeframes for achievements making it easier to review progress by the Gweru City Council at every stage and quickly re-align if it appears to be going off the rails. Local authorities have a critical role to play in the attainment of provincial Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – targets and socio-economic aspirations under NDS-1,” he said.

Mr Mukosera said the NDS-1 encompasses monitoring and evaluation, anchored on the integrated results-based management.

“The importance of monitoring and evaluation in NDS1 is that everyone involved will be easily held accountable for their actions while remedial actions can be taken so that the focus remains on track. So, as councillors, management, workers at GCC and stakeholders, let us get involved in the NDS-1.

“We can’t be crying all the time. We need to sustain our families and the economy as a council,” he said.

Mr Mukosera took the opportunity to go through the 14 points of the NDS-1 explaining what they entailed.

Acting Town Clerk Mr Vakayi Douglas Chikwekwe said the workshop was aimed at coming up with development strategies for the city in line with NDS-1.

“As a city we have to be in sync with objectives of the national Government under NDS-1 and vision 2030. We want to come up with strategies for the first phase running from now till 2025 and from 2025 to 2030,” he said.

Mr Chikwekwe said service delivery was the core business of council which he said will be people oriented.

“NDS-1 speaks of people engagement and we are going to be engaging more with our residents and stakeholders from budget formulation to implementation of proposed projects so that we improve on service delivery as well as improving on the GDP of Midlands province,” he said.

Gweru Mayor Councillor Josiah Makombe said in line with the vision of being a prosperous, sustainable city of choice by 2030, it was crucial for leaders and stakeholders to engage.

“It is common objectives that bring us together and we therefore cannot overemphasis the point that differently located as we may be in our various departments, we must be able to coordinate our programmes in order to achieve coherence as required by our Constitution,” he said.

Meanwhile, Cllr Makombe who is the president of the Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe (Ucaz) said all councils should have a road map on how their local economies can work hand in hand with NDS-1 and the vision 2030 for the development of the country.

“It not just GCC holding such a workshop, all the councils are holding similar workshops so that as Ucaz we move along with the Central Government to improve service delivery and empower our residents,” he said.