Councils receive devolution funds

Local authorities have started receiving their “devolution funds” from central Government for locally-planned development, but the Government is in the process of fine-tuning the Constitution to speed up the decentralisation process and to sort out the taxation and administrative powers in the provinces and districts to make devolution work properly.

As Zimbabwe turned devolution from a concept to a system, it had become obvious that legal changes were required, along with decisions as to what processes could be driven by the top-down approach of Government handing down powers and what had to be done through the bottom-up approach of building capacity at lower levels.

In a virtual meeting with Zimpapers editors, Local Government and Public Works Minister July Moyo said Government had this year allocated $2.9 billion to local authorities to undertake their own identified development projects.

“The power to decide on the activity to undertake remains with the local authorities but given the guidelines, the major six areas are education, health, water, electricity, social amenities and roads. This year local authorities have started receiving money and should brand their projects so people can see that devolution works.

“There are clear guidelines. The President is saying each province must produce a GDP that indicates areas of growth. There must be competition because we are given resources, which can best be exploited by people who are nearest to them. Because of this, every local authority has a role to produce its own GDP,” he said.

Minister Moyo said the devolution was being delayed by some contradictions and omissions in the constitution, which was now being amended to allow Parliament to give more powers to provincial authorities so they can fill the gap between central Government and the urban and district councils.

“When we wanted to promulgate the Provincial Councils Act, and the Metropolitan Councils Act, we hit a snag. We did the principles in 2018 and wanted to enact the legislation, but found out that there were a lot of contradictions and omissions in the constitution. This is why we are now awaiting the amendment of the constitution, which is going through the legislature right now,” he said.

Minister Moyo said under the Provincial Councils Act, provincial councils were allowed to elect 10 members in each province. But metropolitan councils did not have that provision. In Harare, there are several local authorities in the province.

Another problem was the potential conflict of interest in having the Parliamentarians from a province sitting in the provincial council, although Parliament was supposed to the watchdog to ensure all Government money was properly spent.

As devolution was turned from theory into practice, legislation was needed and the constitution needed to be amended to allow the practical legislation to be enacted.

He said according to the constitution, there was supposed to be interaction between central Government and local authorities. “We now have a devolution system, which is captured in two chapters of the constitution. Chapter 14 deals with the powers; those devolved powers to the local authorities and provincial councils.

“Chapter 16 is looking at financial devolution, resource devolution; resources that ought to come from central Government going to local authorities and to the metropolitan and provincial councils. Devolution includes resources at the local level and at the provincial level,” he said.

At present all the powers of local taxation were given to the local authorities, the urban and district rural councils, but no local taxation powers to the provincial councils or central Government. On the other hand all powers of income taxation were given to the central Government.

“We still have to find out what powers we would want to put in the enabling legislation, that can be given to the provincial and metropolitan councils.

“Decentralisation is done in two ways. There is the decentralisation which is devolution where you are giving legal, financial and human resource powers to an institution.” This is top down from Government to the local level.

“There is decentralisation where you are decongesting people, where you are de-concentrating people, where you are delegating people so that they can be in the provinces or in the districts where they are closer to the people and they can deliver some of the powers which Government is not devolving to local authorities or to the provincial councils,” he said. This was bottom up devolution, giving power straight to the appropriate level.

Ministers of State were central Government ministers and for the purposes of making sure services were given and co-ordination took place between government and local authorities, businesses, NGOs and other actors, that delegation was given to a Minister of State stationed in every province.

“We also have district development co-ordinators. These are Government functionaries again.” in addition many ministries had designated officers at provincial and district level.

“There is a lot of central Government now operating in a province, and in a district, but their relationship to local authorities is to make sure that we reinforce the powers that have been given to local authorities by central Government through devolution. But their power is through delegation or deconcentration.

“Because the local authority has the power of taxation and approves any investment taking place in their area, the promotion of investment is a joint function of central, provincial and local authorities,” he said.-herald