By Bernard Bwoni
It is well and fine to create your own little green space, a little
paradise for yourself and an oasis in the middle of raging waters but the fact
of the matter is that your individual comfort will always be under threat from
collective misery. The Rhodesians did it until cumulative deprivation of the
majority dismantled the biased construct. It is better to create a comfortable
space for collective benefit, a place of aesthetics and beauty, a place for
everyone to enjoy and be prepared to defend for continued aggregate benefit. The
government of Zimbabwe has been proactive and progressive in laying the
foundations for the country’s reorganisation following years of external and
internal obstructions. The focus has been people-centred policies and that is
policies for undivided societal gains. That is the key to silencing all those
perennial naysayers of government and government policy through effective implementation
and delivery. Professor Jonathan Moyo was on point when he recently stressed
the importance of service delivery and implementing the objectives of ZIMASSET
as the key to countering those who had been working clandestinely and in cohort
with external elements to unconstitutionally unseat President Mugabe. That is
the only way to upgrade the lives of the ordinary citizens of Zimbabwe and
rebuffing those who have been working tirelessly to derail Zimbabwe’s economic
revolution. Zimbabwe under the astute stewardship of President Mugabe has
weathered the storm and there is clear awareness that the only defence against
such attacks and the surest way towards another landslide victory in 2018 is
through good public services in place for people.
The government has continued prioritising civic services, welfare
services, human development services and provision of basic minimum services
amid very difficult micro and macroeconomic conditions. This is not rocket science;
the people of Zimbabwe have been embracing government initiatives because they
seek to empower and ameliorate citizens’ lives. The priority has been clean,
constant and consistent water supplies, improved sanitation and roads
rehabilitation. New pumps were recently installed at the Morton Jaffray Water
Treatment and most are beginning to feel the benefits of such service delivery
initiatives. Amid the never ending negative onslaught the government has continued
to have that bona fide raison d’être to the welfare of the people and the
development of Zimbabwe through public service delivery. The paper that
ZIMASSET is written on has to translate into tangible activity on the ground
for the benefit of ordinary men and women on the street. Hence the urgent need
to harness and involve all stakeholders and the starting point should be the
development of partnerships, mobilisation of all civil society groups, the
realignment of the frustrating bureaucratic bottlenecks and the use of ICT as a
potential tool for effective public service delivery.
There has been a people-centred service delivery approach where the new
relationship between the government and the citizens has become that of
provider and recipient of the public service. The 2018 election is safely in
the bag once these service delivery strategies go into full swing and people
have a clear awareness of their existence. There is need for education and
information on these initiatives. The government doing a lot of hard ground work
in terms of infrastructure development and delivery of services yet there is a
lack of clarity on such and citizens continue to lament the lack of such
because of lack of information. There are many developments happening in Zimbabwe
as we speak but unfortunately these have not been effectively and clearly
presented to the public. The citizens of Zimbabwe have basic rights to expect
to receive high quality public services and the government of Zimbabwe does
listen to the people on a broad scale, but there is need for the authorities to
start narrowing it down to the barebones of people-centred. It has to start
with listening to the people and modifying services accordingly to the needs of
the people. The government as the service provider acts as trouble-shooters and
should effectively and timely respond to complaints and continually seek
feedback and evaluate own strategies for service provision to continually
improve the service being provided. The citizens of Zimbabwe have to be
involved in the monitoring process and these are nitty-gritty’s of effective
public service delivery.
There are some unsustainable inequalities in the country as a whole and
a good example is the divide between the northern and southern, low density and
high density residential locations which existed before independence and still
persist today. The low density areas seem to enjoy way better services than
their high density counterparts who are mostly densely populated and thus in
more urgent need of services. If you travel around Glen Lorne, Greendale, Mount
Pleasant, Borrowdale and others you find the roads are in better shape than
Mbare, Mufakose, Glen Norah, Tafara, Budiriro and others. The low density areas
are generally cleaner and there is less dumping in public spaces. The
government should thus focus on the poor and disadvantaged citizens to the
extent of affirmative action and positive discrimination in terms of service
delivery in favour of those previously and perpetually marginalised groups.
There is need for conscious and deliberately planned outreach to target the
more disadvantaged in the cities and rural areas.
The provision of basic services is recognised within the Zimbabwe
Constitution and this should be built around high standards of integrity in the
country's institutions. There is need for better and clear information
dissemination and the strengthening of the country's public institutions. Weak
public institutions will yield poor public services. What Professor Moyo was
alluding to is that the continuous improvement of methods, processes and
standards of high quality service delivery should form part of the ruling
party's election campaign. This is no longer about saying what people want to
hear a few weeks before the elections but actually focusing on what people need
in the long run. This is about incorporating service delivery into the day to
day running of government. Street lighting should be working uninterrupted
unless it is forces of nature, roads should be constructed and maintained,
potholes addressed on an ongoing basis, clean and consistent running water,
hospitals working at normal capacity, good and affordable schools and support
for those who are unemployed. The government has to be commended for tackling
some of those niggling public service delivery issues under the tight fiscal
constraints.
The ruling party has the tools and strategies in place and has started
putting these into practice. The emphasis should be on simplification of rules,
reducing redundant multifaceted levels of decision making and greater
delegation of authority to the levels that actually deliver on the ground. The
result based management system should be implemented fully and there should be
follow-up right down to the bottom end of the structure. The buck stops with
the senior management and if there is a dislocation in terms of service
delivery then the management is not fit for purpose and in need of replacement.
The senior management in service delivery has to be accountable to both
government and citizens of Zimbabwe. They should be emphasising capacity
building to upgrade skills, to change attitudes and improve performance. The
idea is to first and foremost reduce or remove completely the bottlenecks and
bureaucracies, reduce waiting times, simplify forms and processes, provide
information and make it easier for citizens to get that information, create
hotlines for service delivery and complaints or compliments.
The senior management should be offloading unhelpful and unfriendly
personnel to ensure that service is delivered according to promises made, that
waiting times are as short as possible. The classic case of poor service
delivery in Zimbabwe is the installation of electricity in newly built
dwellings. It takes forever get electricity into your home unless if a bribe is
paid. This is a basic right of every citizen of Zimbabwe to have electricity
but the power companies make the lives of citizens unbearable. The red tape,
the bribery and lack of transparency and accountability in certain institutions
has eroded the trust citizens have in government ability to deliver good
quality services.
Any incremental improvement in public services will positively impact on
many citizens and that translate to even more votes in 2018. Innovation and
continuous improvement are the hallmarks of sustainable public sector
transformation and the country is beginning to see some of the benefits. There
is need to reshape public services to make them more flexible, responsive to
the needs of the people and more effective by removing unnecessary red tape and
duplication in planning and delivery. The complex and confusing landscape of
the corrupt and inefficient public sector organisations has to be simplified
and make for easy access to services for all.
The government should terminate any activities that have stopped
contributing to the public purpose, remove all organisational barriers
detrimental to service delivery, simplify structures to streamline decision
making and increase transparency. Service delivery costs money, we are talking
of money the government does not really have and as such should remain frugal.
Government should look into bringing together organisations with similar
skills, expertise and processes to achieve greater effectiveness, economies of
scale and removal of duplicated functions and powers. And after that 2018 is
yet another walk in the park.
#Bhora mberi ne service delivery#
bernardbwoni.blogspot.com
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