Coltart is new Bulawayo mayor
Gift Nyathi
Bulawayo’s ward 4 councillor David Coltart and ward 9 councillor Donaldson Mabutho have been sworn in as Mayor and Deputy Mayor respectively.
The two took up their new leadership roles uncontested before Town Clerk Christopher Dube at the City Hall Chambers this afternoon.
In his acceptance speech, Coltart vowed to pursue a zero tolerance approach to corruption.
“I have heard concerns over corruption in council and I would like to assure citizens that I will adopt a zero tolerance approach to corruption. We are yet to set up a hotline for whistleblowers especially (among) citizens, to be able report on corrupt members of the council because as long as we do not deal with this cancer, Bulawayo will remain underdeveloped,” he said.
The mayor appealed to members of the public to give the newly elected councillors their utmost support as he said on their own, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) councillors might not be as productive as citizen expect.
“We take up this responsibility to deliver the Bulawayo we all aspire to hence it is pertinent for citizens to support the leadership as we are in not to pursue individual and partisan agendas. You would agree with me that in the last few decades the city of Bulawayo has degraded and building it goes beyond a party. It is a holistic effort from different stakeholders that include civic society. I therefore appeal to the central government to decentralise power of the council so as to capacitate the local authority to perform well.
He said his new team will give special focus to cleaning the city, reviewing of historical contracts and also improving water restoration for the public.
Party president Nelson Chamisa endorsed Coltart in the run up to the 23 August election.The Bulawayo City Council is an all-CCC council after the party coasted to a clean sweep of all the 29 seats in the city in the just ended harmonised election.
