Browsing by Author "Chigwata, Tinashe Calton"

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    Decentralization in Africa and the resilience of traditional authorities: Evaluating Zimbabwe’s track record
    (Regional and Federal Studies, 2015) Chigwata, Tinashe Calton
    This paper looks at one of the most important endogenous factors influencing the workings of decentralization in Zimbabwe. Successive waves of formal institutional change that took place during Zimbabwe’s colonial and post-colonial history have been unable able to uproot the influence of traditional leaders. Due to their home-grown legitimacy, various traditional authorities continue to play an ever-present role in the lives of people in rural areas. But, as it is the case throughout most of Africa, the powers of traditional leaders have mostly been uncodified under modern law and these power relations tend to be rather informal and culturally inaccessible to most outsiders. Consequently, the scholarly literature has not been able to systematically acknowledge their pervasive influence. The article concludes with a reflection on how the influence of traditional authorities can be translated into the democratic and progressive empowerment of rural populations in the developing world.
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    Entrenching decentralisation in Africa: A review of the African charter on the values and principles of decentralisation, local governance and local development
    (Springer Verlag, 2018) Chigwata, Tinashe Calton; Ziswa, Melissa
    The African Union (AU) adopted the African Charter on the Values and Principles of Decentralisation, Local Governance and Local Development (African Charter on Decentralisation) in 2014. The Charter seeks to promote decentralisation as a vehicle for improving the livelihood of people on the African continent. It is the first to provide a decentralisation framework or model framework for local government for the African continent. Like most international instruments, member states of the AU will only be legally bound by the Charter once they have ratified it. Most Member States of the AU have not ratified the Charter due to varying reasons, including, the fact that the ratification process in many countries is often cumbersome. Non-ratification could also be due to the fact that there is not yet a clear understanding of the meaning and significance of the decentralisation framework which the Charter provides. Thus, the actual impact of the Charter on changing the poor state of local government on the African continent upon coming into operation is as yet unknown. This problem is inflated by the fact that there is present no scholarly commentary on the Charter, given that it is relatively new. This article provides a critical analysis of the Charter, looking at its strengths and weakness, against the background of the international literature on decentralisation and ‘best’ practices on local government.
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    Entrenching decentralisation in Africa: A review of the African Charter on the values and principles of decentralisation, local governance and local development
    (The Hague Journal on the Rule of Law, 2018) Chigwata, Tinashe Calton; Ziswa, Melissa
    The African Union (AU) adopted the African Charter on the Values and Principles of Decentralisation, Local Governance and Local Development (African Charter on Decentralisation) in 2014. The Charter seeks to promote decentralisation as a vehicle for improving the livelihood of people on the African continent. It is the first to provide a decentralisation framework or model framework for local government for the African continent. Like most international instruments, member states of the AU will only be legally bound by the Charter once they have ratified it. Most Member States of the AU have not ratified the Charter due to varying reasons, including, the fact that the ratification process in many countries is often cumbersome. Non-ratification could also be due to the fact that there is not yet a clear understanding of the meaning and significance of the decentralisation framework which the Charter provides. Thus, the actual impact of the Charter on changing the poor state of local government on the African continent upon coming into operation is as yet unknown. This problem is inflated by the fact that there is present no scholarly commentary on the Charter, given that it is relatively new. This article provides a critical analysis of the Charter, looking at its strengths and weakness, against the background of the international literature on decentralisation and ‘best’ practices on local government.
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    Intergovernmental planning and budgeting in Zimbabwe: Learning the lessons of the past
    (Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, 2017) Chigwata, Tinashe Calton; Marumahoko, Sylvester
    In Zimbabwe, the Prime Minister’s Directives on Decentralisation and Development of 1984 and 1985, together with the Provincial Council and Administration Act 1985, constitute the foundation for postindependence attempts to ensure effective governance. The Directives provided for the establishment of hierarchical structures and mechanisms to coordinate government activities, including development planning at various levels of government. This paper asks whether these structures and mechanisms have been effective in promoting ‘sound’ intergovernmental planning and budgeting, and whether they are still relevant given that in 2013 Zimbabwe adopted a new Constitution with greater promises, visions and demands than its predecessor, the Lancaster House Constitution. The paper argues that the adoption of a new Constitution provides a valuable opportunity to reform the intergovernmental planning and budgeting process, which to date has proved ineffective in fostering integrated and coherent effective governance.
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    Local government in the 2013 constitution of Zimbabwe: Defining the boundaries of local autonomy
    (Hague Journal on the Rule of Law, 2017-10-06) de Visser, Jaap; Chigwata, Tinashe Calton
    The 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe recognises local government as the lowest tier of government in a three tier arrangement. Thus, local government, composed by urban and rural local authorities, now owes its existence directly to the Constitution and not to legislation as was the case under the previous constitutional order. The Constitution assigns to local authorities the responsibility to ‘manage’ and ‘represent’ the affairs of people in their respective areas. Every local authority is given the ‘right to govern’ its jurisdiction with ‘all’ the necessary powers to do so, including devolved powers. Thus, the Constitution recognises that, for the benefits associated with decentralisation to be realised, local authorities require a certain measure of local autonomy. The autonomy which this Constitution affords to local government is however unknown and unexplored, especially from a constitutional law point of view. In this article, we measure the degree of local autonomy guaranteed by the 2013 Constitution.
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    Ministerial directives to local government in Zimbabwe: top-down governance in a decentralized constitution
    (Cambridge University Press, 2017) Chigwata, Tinashe Calton; Muchapondwa, Varaidzo Violet; de Visser, Jaap
    Urban and rural local authorities constitute the lowest tier of Zimbabwe's multilevel system of government. These local governments have a constitutional "right to govern" that must be exercised within the constitutional, legislative and policy framework. Under the old constitutional order, the national government could supervise urban local authorities, for example by issuing policy directives to ensure that these authorities governed in a manner that enabled them to deliver on national and local goals. This article examines this supervisory instrument, the powers it gives the national government, its use in practice and its relevance under the new constitutional order. The main argument is that supervisory instruments, such as the power to issue policy directives to local governments, are necessary in any multilevel system of government. However, such supervisory powers must be balanced with the need for local autonomy, to allow local governments to deliver on their service delivery obligations and development mandate.
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    Participatory Budgeting in the City of Kwekwe (Zimbabwe) A perspective on the Issues, Trends and Options
    (African Journal of Public Affairs, 2018) Marumahoko, Sylvester; Chigwata, Tinashe Calton; Nhende, Norman
    Towards the end of 2017, as has been the case every year, the Kwekwe City Council produced a budget outlining its various activities for the 2018 financial year. The unveiling of the 2018 budget was, among other things, accompanied by disgruntlement, confrontation, street protests and dejection by the inhabitants of the City. At the centre of the problem, city inhabitants argued, was the failure of the City Council to proactively engage and involve them in the budget formulation and claims that previous budgets have failed to tackle poor service delivery. On the other hand, the City Council (comprising the administration and elected officials) rebutted these claims although there was general acceptance that the level of service delivery does not meet the expectations of the citizens of Kwekwe. The article, in the context of contributing to the debate on good governance, challenges the claim that the budgeting process in the City of Kwekwe is participatory.
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    The role of traditional leaders in Zimbabwe: are they still relevant?
    (University of the Western Cape, 2016) Chigwata, Tinashe Calton
    As in many other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the institution of traditional leadership has always been central to the governance of communities in Zimbabwe. Traditional authorities take various forms and shapes in many African countries including Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, for example, the structures and systems of the institution of leadership in Ndebele, Shona, Kalanga, Tonga and Venda ethnic communities have some remarkable differences even though they also depict certain similarities. Currently and generally, the institution of traditional leadership comprises chiefs, headmen and village heads- in order of hierarchy. Village heads are physically the closest to the people and thus, have the most interactions with the citizens in rural areas. Prior to the colonisation of Zimbabwe, the institution of traditional leadership was the sole governance structure with legitimacy to govern derived from tradition and culture. Traditional leaders had fused "governmental" powers and authority, ie judicial, administrative and political. Soon after colonisation in 1890 the colonial government dismantled, and in some cases replaced, traditional governance structures with "modern" State institutions as it sought to advance its interests and exercise firm control over the Black population.