The City of Masvingo’s Mayor’s Christmas Cheer Fundraising Golf Tournament held at the Masvingo Golf Club on Sunday the 13^th of December, 2020 was a resounding success with overwhelming support from golfers and sponsors from the corporate world.

The tournament was aimed at raising funds for the less privileged members of our community. The targeted beneficiaries include; Alpha Cottages, Copota School for the Blind, Association for the Visually Handicapped,  Pioneer Trust, Alfred Walter Hostel, Jairos Jiri Association, John Mutikizizi Old People’s Home, Masvingo General Hospital, Mazorodze Martenity Home, Morgenster School for the Deaf, Morgenster Hospital, Mucheke Old People’s Home, National Council for Disabled Persons, Ngomahuru Psychiatric Hospital, Copota Workshop for the Blind, SPCA, ZIMCARE TRUST (MSVO BRANCH) Ratidzo School, Zimbabwe Parents for the Handicapped Children and ZIKI Cooperative Society so for the Blind.

Addressing guests and golfers who attended the tournament’s prize-giving ceremony and cocktail reception, Deputy Mayor, Cllr Wellington Mawende highlighted the importance of giving to the less fortunate members of our society that they can also have a good Christmas.

The Deputy Mayor also commented the Masvingo business community for supporting the tournament.

‘We would like to express our deepest gratitude for the valued support of the City of Masvingo’s Mayor’s Christmas Cheer Fundraising Golf Tournament. Your donations are very important to us, it helps in the continuity of the Mayor’s office’s efforts to assist the less privileged members of our community. This would have not been successful without your act of generosity in support of the golf tournament’, he said.

Also speaking during the event, Masvingo Golf Club captain Mr Peter Nyaruwata applauded the relationship between the Masvingo Business community, the golfers and Masvingo City Council. He said much hope is that the amicable working relationship will see the development and growth of the City of Masvingo which has a vision to be an industrialised metropolitan city by 2030.  He chronicled some of the partnerships’ achievements to date.

‘We welcome this relationship between the Masvingo business community, golfers and the city council. I am seeing real relationship, we being the sons and council being the city fathers, we see ourselves going far.’, he said.

Apart from the fundraising golf tournament, the Masvingo Business community as well as residents had earlier own contributed towards the Mayor’s Christmas Cheer Fund from the day of the launch on the 21^st of October 2020.

The fundraising golf tournament whose key sponsors were Byword Motors, Golden Amen, Nyaradzo Group, Regency Hotels, Croco Motors, Headmount, Praymost attracted more than 50 golfers from across the country.

IN the endless search for more efficient and effective methods of delivering social services, 2020 has seen increasing interests of partnerships for the purpose of expanding safe drinking water and sanitation coverage as well as improving the health of communities.

The Government, DFID (donor), UNICEF, Christian Care Zimbabwe (implementing partner) in conjunction with DWSSC and Masvingo City Council are in the process of erecting solar systems and 6 (10 000 liter) tanks in Ward 3 and 4 (10 000 liter) tanks in Ward 4’s communal water points (boreholes). The motorized solar water piped scheme is set to ensure availability of water all the time.

This project has seen involvement and participation of the communities which are the beneficiaries. Water point committees were selected and trained to ensure longer term system sustainability.

The City of Masvingo has managed to build linkages with a number of Non-Governmental Organizations in delivering key services to the community. The partnership of City of Masvingo, Dialogue on Shelter Trust and Homeless People’s Federation has also resulted in notable projects which include drilling of 2 boreholes in Vic Range and Runyararo West, 2 (5000 liter) tanks and 8 spaced water taps for Vic Range.

The partnerships are aiming at improving water supply systems mainly in high lying areas of the populous high density suburbs of Masvingo, as short term plans whilst waiting for water augmentation phase 2 to take off in 2021.

In a development set to enable ease of doing business, the City of Masvingo has unveiled an online bill enquiry function on its website. A centralised system that digitalises all accounts information for ratepayers.

Ratepayers can log on to www.masvingocity.org.zw, click on the Pay Bill Now tab and proceed to enter account number and contact to be able to enquire and pay bills. The system automatically updates accounts information.

The introduction of online bill enquiry has been received well by hordes of residents as it ensures that residents access their accounts to enquire balances and process payments conveniently.

Given the ever-present payment alternatives like mobile money services such a feature is going to be very effective and conducive for residents. Currently, Council has been making use of mobile money services such as Ecocash, OneMoney as well as bank transfers.

Key among the advantages of online payments is the creation of a cashless society, eliminating the issues of queueing in Revenue Halls, bringing major convenience to ratepayers.

The Council’s initiative works with the full support of a locally designed server that computes the data quickly and updates the whole system. The system is independent of wholesome operations, allowing independent activities to transact then compile data in the background, instead of pulling the whole database to offer a service, adding so much speed on the serving terminal. Plans are underway to introduce a mobile application to cater for the service as well.

On the 22^nd and 23^rd of September 2020, the City of Masvingo through its Health Department conducted an eye screening exercise at Mazorodze Clinic as part of its traditional staff wellness initiative programme.

The programme which was designed with a vision to create awareness among employees on the importance of health seeking behavior    and as an important step in improving the health and productivity of employees ran for 2 days and was very successful.

The staff wellness programme is conducted as part of broader efforts by the Organisation to ensure a healthy Council community. Considering the improvements made to the health and well-being of a work-place, and the amount of time we spend at our workplaces, it makes sense to foster workplace wellness programs. Employees wellness program positively affect the productivity output of team members.