First Full Chamber Meeting for New Bulawayo City Council

While chairing the November 2013, City of Bulawayo Full Council Meeting, the recently installed Mayor, Cllr Martin K Moyo, welcomed the new board of policy makers and thanked the residents for giving them the mandate to represent them in Local Governance issues.

“I would like to welcome you, Honourable Councillors, residents, civil society and members of the press seated at the public gallery, to the first Full Council Meeting and may the Lord Almighty guide us as we conduct our duties as the new policy makers of this wonderful and blessed city.

“I would also like to inform you that I have received good news from the Director of the Department of Engineering Services, that we have received some notable inflows of rain water to our supply dams. They amount to a total of 5 333 660 cubic litres,” he said.

The make-up of the 29 member new Council is characterised by 12 returned councillors, arguably the highest in the country. This clearly illustrates the positive effect of ZDDT’s intervention.

The issue of cremation took centre stage, following a suggestion by Ward 19 (Old and East Pumula) Councillor, Cllr Clayton Zana, to urge all the community leaders to encourage their residents to adopt this method to help alleviate the Local Authority’s challenge of diminishing burial space within the city as, traditionally, the dead are buried in graves.

“We, as the policy makers need to encourage residents to write in their wills and indicate that they want to be cremated when they die because everyone respects a dead person’s will, as opposed to this coming as a suggestion from the surviving family members,” he said.

The new Councillor for Ward 23 (Nkulumane 12), Cllr Thobani Ncube, agreed with Cllr C Zana, saying that it is important to consider the aspect of culture and to properly educate the citizenry before cremation can be adopted as a formal policy of the city.

“I agree that the issue of burial space is a major concern for the city but I think we should be very careful and consider that this is a new practice which is not engraved in our culture. We are bound to face massive resistance if we are not careful and therefore I suggest that the city first embarks on an education drive before we can talk about adopting this practice,” he said.

27 Councillors, 15 of whom actively participated, attended the Meeting. 

ZDDT attends the Chamber meetings on a monthly basis, and uses them as a yardstick to measure the impact of its interventions in enhancing the performance of the LA through its Local Authority Capacity Building Programme.