Parking attendants with the authority to slap cuffs on people are the nightmare Walter Mzembi keeps picturing. The former Foreign Affairs Minister pushed back after Cabinet greenlit the Municipal Police and Courts Bill, letting council officers arrest, investigate, and prosecute by-law breaches locally.
Ziyambi Ziyambi tabled it wearing his hat as chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Legislation, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs.
Mzembi's position is that arrest authority belongs with the ZRP, exercised competently, rather than farmed out to councils. Vendors, drivers, and street kids absorb the worst of it whenever enforcement widens, he reckons, and anybody moving through town as a VVIP never feels that friction firsthand.
His alternative leans economic. Build something inclusive and productive enough that would-be offenders have actual work to slot into.
Bulawayo Mayor David Coltart sees it another way. Councils presently have no real teeth for enforcing local rules, which he treats as a serious gap, though he shares the concern about innocent residents catching heat. Whatever ends up passing needs guardrails written in that keep municipal officers from stretching their authority.
Ziyambi Ziyambi tabled it wearing his hat as chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Legislation, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs.
Mzembi's position is that arrest authority belongs with the ZRP, exercised competently, rather than farmed out to councils. Vendors, drivers, and street kids absorb the worst of it whenever enforcement widens, he reckons, and anybody moving through town as a VVIP never feels that friction firsthand.
His alternative leans economic. Build something inclusive and productive enough that would-be offenders have actual work to slot into.
Bulawayo Mayor David Coltart sees it another way. Councils presently have no real teeth for enforcing local rules, which he treats as a serious gap, though he shares the concern about innocent residents catching heat. Whatever ends up passing needs guardrails written in that keep municipal officers from stretching their authority.
