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Analysis of 2025 Zimbabwe Local Government Performance Scores

Reconsidering Local Government Failure in Zimbabwe: A Response to the 2025 Public Sector Performance Scores Leopold Bhoroma Zimbabwe’s 2025 public sector performance results have produced both moments of excellence and moments of concern. It is important to recognise both with equal clarity. First, congratulations are in order. Blessing Chafesuka, Town Clerk for Mutare, has been deservedly recognised as the country’s best-performing Town Clerk. This achievement reflects not only personal leadership, but also solid vision, institutional effort and a commitment to navigating complexity in one of Zimbabwe’s most dynamic urban environments. Dr Lucia Mkandla, Town Clerk for Kwekwe City, the winner in 2024, emerged as the first runner-up, an equally commendable recognition of leadership in a challenging city with a failing iron and steel industry that once drove the economy. Consider Kubiku, Acting Town Secretary for Chiredzi, takes the position of second runner-up, demonstrating that even i...
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The Scandal of Disconnection: The Failure of Institutional Local Government in Zimbabwe

  The Scandal of Disconnection: The Failure of Institutional Local Government in Zimbabwe As Zimbabwe moves into the implementation phase of Zimbabwe’s National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2) as the pathway to achieving Vision 2030 and transforming the country into an upper-middle-income economy, the role of institutional local government warrants renewed scrutiny. At the centre of this scrutiny lies a fundamental concern: the scandal of disconnection. Development Planning Disconnection NDS2 correctly recognises the role of local government in national development by placing strong emphasis on devolution and decentralisation, service delivery and accountability, local economic development (LED), and institutional reform and public sector modernisation. It further acknowledges that development outcomes are territorially produced, that local authorities matter for economic transformation, and that governance reform is central to national recovery. While NDS2 sets the right dev...
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  The Vicissitudes of Running From to the Same Leopold Bhoroma (Local Governance and Policy Analyst) 1. Introduction In our daily lives and engagements, we often encounter the paradoxical nature of systemic and personal escape. The phenomenon where efforts to flee entrenched dysfunctions often lead back to their reconfigured manifestations. The notion of “running from to the same” captures the circular trajectory wherein efforts at reform or escape deliver us back into the arms of the very structures or behaviours we sought to evade. This phenomenon is especially pronounced in governance systems, where political change, administrative reform, or leadership renewal often yields little substantive transformation. This article unpacks the underlying causes of this pattern and offers pathways to break the cycle. Through a conceptual analysis of structural inertia, individual cognition, and policy failure, it calls for a transformative approach that prioritises self-awarene...
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  🔍 Polemic Disjunction and the Advancement of Local Government in Zimbabwe By Leopold Bhoroma   As Zimbabwe moves towards the development of the National Development Strategy 2, the final step towards achieving Vision 2030, the advancement of the local government system holds the key to inclusive development and responsive service delivery. Local government is the government closest to the people, providing essential services and local development that shields people from the vagaries and failures of central government. It’s a fact that developed countries have stronger local governments than central governments. However, in Zimbabwe, the potential of this tier of government has been persistently hampered by I term polemic disjunction , a state of deep ideological, political, and institutional fragmentation between actors and approaches to governance reform. This condition manifests as conflicting visions, policies, and practices that undermine the coherent and sustai...
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