By Lloyd Mupfudze- The appointment of commissions to preside over local authority affairs in the absence in place of elected councilors is unconstitutional and there is urgent need to align local government laws with Constitution.
In 2018 the Minister of local government appointed commissioners to run the affairs of councils just before the 2018 harmonised election and before the swearing in of new elected councilors.
This was in terms of section 158 of Rural District Council Act There are currently maneuvers to appoint a commission to run the affairs of the city of Harare. These appointments will be ultra vires the 2013 constitution in particular section 265(2) which clearly states that, “All members of local authorities must be elected by registered voters within the areas for which the local authorities are established.”
The appointed people are usually not accountable to the residents as compared to the elected officials. The appointments are done without even consulting the residents and done on partisan lines for instance the majority of individuals appointed to be commissioners in 2018 were Zanu pf members especially those who lost in the ruling party primary elections.
In some areas where the opposition made inroads in council elections during the past decade, the Minister of Local Government used his statutory power to appoint special interest councillors. Section 31 as read with Section 11 of the Rural District Councils Act empowers the Minister to appoint a number of special interest councillors not exceeding one quarter of the elected council.
The Minister of local government have also used section 57 of the Rural District Councils Act to appoint persons who are not elected councillors to constitute the town board. However, these sections appear to violate the requirements of section 265(2) of the constitution.
This has caused conflict between councillors and also individuals appointed by the Minister, particularly concerning leadership over development initiatives in the ward. This is so because the Minister would have appointed losing candidates as special interest councillors or town board members. The appointed individuals would view their appointments as an opportunity to further their political ambitions.
People who had failed to get mandate from the people, should not be imposed on the community by the Minister. The government should speedily realign existing legislation so that it complies with Section 265 of the constitution which sets out general principles of local government, of which the most important is that all members of local authorities must be elected by registered voters within their areas.