HARARE - Harare residents representative groups are wasting their time attacking council over service delivery issues in the media, the city’s mayor Muchadeyi Masunda has said.

Masunda took a swipe at service delivery activists who have been “making noise” on public platforms.
“All the problems bedevilling greater Harare require long-term and sustainable solutions,” Masunda told the Daily News.

“The answers are certainly not going to come out of scoring brownie points against each other in one-sided programmes on television or unbalanced stories in newspapers,” he said.

Combined Harare Residents Association (Chra) and Harare Residents Trust (HRT) have been vocal in their criticism of council performance.

He called on residents representative organisations to join hands with the struggling local authority to restore Harare’s sunshine status.

“I would like to extend an olive branch to pressure groups that have mushroomed more recently to join forces with us in proactively grappling with the myriad problems.

“These include indiscriminate vending and littering, domestic and industrial pollution, traffic congestion caused by a proliferation of commuter omnibuses, unmetered taxis and vehicles for driving schools, children and homeless people living on the streets as well as the serious inconvenience caused by commuter omnibuses to licensed shops and bona fide shoppers,” said Masunda.

Meanwhile, Masunda chairs the John Sisk & Son board not Murray and Roberts as stated in our Sunday paper. - Wendy Muperi