The City of Masvingo has held a two-day Departmental Integrated Performance Agreement workshop from the 25^th to the 26^th of February 2021 aimed at mapping strategies and set targets for the year 2021, in line with the local authority’s vision, to be an industrialised metropolitan city by 2030.

In his welcome and closing remarks, City of Masvingo Acting Town Clerk, Eng Edward Mukaratirwa urged all departments and Councillors to successfully achieve the targeted goals for the year 2021.

‘Let’s deal with the major issues, let’s achieve so that when we also leave the system, we can be able to leave some legacy so that when we look  back, we would be proud of what we would have done and probably done more that we have set up now. Failure to set and understand our goals means our performance monitoring and DIPA are out of sync,’ said Eng Mukaratirwa.

The Acting Town Clerk also emphasised the importance of teamwork, noting that there was a need for members to work together and be able to leave a legacy.

The workshop afforded the Councillors and Council’s senior administration with a platform to set targets that will provide for the impetus for the efficient administration of Council as well as plan for the 2021 calendar year in order to create a road-map that will ensure the success of the local authority.

The two-day workshop focused on key major result areas that of Infrastructure development and maintenance, Social service provision, Good corporate governance, Investment promotion and Environmental management services

The workshop was attended by the Councillors and Council Management and ended on a high note with participants geared for the year 2021.

True to its vision of becoming a world class metropolitan city by 2030, the City of Masvingo is set to roll out water augmentation phase 2 at an estimated budget of ZWL 270 000. 000, as the local authority intensifies its commitment to ensure excellent service delivery.

The much long-awaited project is aimed at improving the water situation in the city which is currently in a pathetic state due to a series of electrical faults at Bushmead Waterworks. The project will see acquisition of high-tech equipment to support the waterworks plant. This initiative is part of the City’s commitment to ensure residents get clean and safe water.

The increasing demand due to ballooning population as a result of population and property growth, coupled with pressures from new developments for connections onto the existing constrained water system as well as the depreciating equipment of the plant of the oldest city in the country has caused Masvingo to be a water stressed city.

The plant which was commissioned in the early 70s, and was later expanded twice in 1984 and 2003 now has depreciating equipment. Hence, rolling out of the programme comes with it the benefits of an expanded plant and abundant water supply.

Currently, water supply capacity is at 30 megalitres per day against an estimated demand of 50 megalitres, thus a deficit of 20 megalitres.

To manage the deficit, the City has instituted a programme to close off valves to the town overnight while building up head in the reservoirs. This ensures that the residents get water at the critical time of the morning before they embark on their daily chores.

Lately, the City entered into partnerships for cooperation with the donor community, DFID, UNICEF, Christian Care Zimbabwe and DWSSC in installation of solar powered water systems in the high density suburb of Mucheke to ensure availability of water all the time.

Masvingo City Council is moving forward to achieve its vision of being a world class metropolitan city by 2030 guided by a national strategic intent as pronounced by the desire to attain upper-middle-class income status by 2030 as expounded by President E. D Mnangagwa.

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.

In a development aimed at improving the standards of living for Masvingo residents, the City of Masvingo is refurbishing Council owned flats in the high density suburb of Mucheke.

Some of the refurbished apartments include Mambo and Large Barracks Hostels housing plus or minus 60 families.

The development will go down in the annals of Masvingo City Council as a historic initiative which the Council has taken to take cognizance of the importance of decent accommodation for its residents.

Beneficiaries of the project expressed joy at the completion of the renovations despite the inclement economic conditions that have characterized the country since the turn of the millennium which had stalled renovations of the flats, resulting in residents living in squalid conditions.

The renovations of the flats will go a long way in bridging a yawning infrastructure gap that was occasioned by the absence of the adequate housing facilities to cater for the booming population since independence. Ordinarily and according to plan, the bachelor flats are not meant to cater for families.

Demand for housing remains extraordinarily high due to the rate at which the city is urbanizing rapidly and will need to absorb thousands new residents over and again. Affordable housing in the right locations though can bolster economic mobility and untimely drive GDP growth.

A team comprising of medical staff from Masvingo City Council has successfully made a historic delivery at the district’s Council owned, Rujeko Isolation Centre on a COVID-19 patient.
The delivery was made under strict Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) measures.
The new mother is one of COVID 19 patients who were in quarantine at the district’s isolation centre after returning to Zimbabwe from South Africa. However, on a positive and cheerful note, both the mother and baby are well and have since been discharged after the mother recovered from COVID – 19.
Commenting on the development, Masvingo City Council Acting Town Clerk, Engineer Edward Mukaratirwa applauded the team for the job well done.
‘I want to thank the Matron and the nursing staff at Rujeko Isolation Centre for a job well done. They managed the delivery in a highly professional way in these trying times with limited resources. Their commitment to duty and passion for their profession is commendable and as Management we commit to continuously support them with resources and incentives to make their work easier’, he said.
The medical team boasts of a 100% recovery of all cases as there has not been any single death recorded.

In the wake of the novel COVID- 19 pandemic worldwide, the City of Masvingo in conjunction with a non-governmental organisation, Christian Care held a two day training of the Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) at Flamboyant Hotel, Masvingo from the 9th to the 10th of July 2020.
Training the Rapid Response Teams is one of the strategic priorities of the City Council to enhance the city’s capacity to respond to a potential importation and spread of COVID – 19 cases in Masvingo. This was stated by City of Masvingo Acting Town clerk in his speech: ‘This training is of high priority. This is why I encourage all participants to make the most out of it. It will enable us to strengthen our response capacities against this terrible COVID – 19 pandemic as well as to respond better to any other outbreaks.’
The training was organized with the support of Christian Care and experts from the health sector, who worked hand in hand with senior staff from the City Health Department. The Acting Chief Environmental Health Officer, Mr Ngonidzashe Maphamula acknowledged that this training “is one of the great strategies of the City Council for public health improvement in the city, so that the local authority will be able to respond to public health emergencies and lead the process.’
The objective of the training was not only to provide participants with the most recent and most updated guidance for detection, confirmation and response to cases of COVID -19 but also to teach the training methodology to enable the participants to conduct this training on other high risk issues.
Since the COVID -19 outbreak worldwide, in Zimbabwe it was declared a state of emergency in March 2020 which was followed by a national lockdown and closure of borders from all the countries identified as being at high risk of COVID – 19 importation.
This RRT training, which in the current context focuses on COVID – 19, Gender and WASH, can also be used to enhance readiness for the response to other hazards threatening the health of people in the city.

The City of Masvingo COVID – 19 Fundraising Launch that was held in the Civic Centre Hall on Wednesday the 1^st of July, 2020 was a resounding success with overwhelming support from the corporate world and local institutions.

The launch was aimed at raising funds towards the purchase of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other essential materials to help capacitate local treatment and isolation facilities.

Addressing the corporate representatives who attended the launch, City of Masvingo, Acting Town clerk reiterated the need for a collaborative approach in the fight against the pandemic.

‘There is great need for a collaborative approach if we are to deal with this pandemic in a professional, holistic and sustainable way. We are launching this COVID – 19 Support Fund in order to raise the resources required to assist the City Council as well as assist Masvingo Provincial Taskforce in the fight against this pandemic. We are getting resources from both the National Taskforce and the Provincial Taskforce but these resources are not enough to sustain everyday activities of the Isolation Centre. Top on our priority is PPE. There is need for enough personal protective equipment to adequately protect our front line workers’, he said.

The Acting Chief Environmental Health Officer, Mr Ngonidzashe Maphamula also narrated the challenges being faced by both the patients and front line workers at the Isolation Centre. In his speech he gave a summary of the COVID – 19 pandemic in the country and Masvingo district.

His Worship, The Mayor for Masvingo City Council, Cllr Collen Maboke commended the business community for supporting the noble cause in the fight against the novel COVID – 19 pandemic. He went on to commend management for clearly articulating their vision, outlining the trajectory the organisation intends to take in order to fight the pandemic without having to burden the ratepayers.

The Mayor, further noted that unity is a prerequisite for the city’s development and that both the private and public sectors had an important role to play in development.

Apart from contributing significantly towards the fight against the COVID – 19 pandemic by offering one of its clinics as an Isolation Facility, the City of Masvingo has contributed with human capital working at centre.

The fundraising launch whose key sponsors were ZB Bank, Regency Hotels and Leisure Group, Auto Disc Kinge, Hevoi fm, GZU Campus Radio, The Mirror among others, attracted a number of participants and donors within and outside Masvingo. Other companies which pledged include; N Richards Group and Victoria Hardware. Council and management also contributed towards the worthy cause.