Abstract:
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.
