Bare — FOOTED and unkempt, 10-year-old Samson Phiri rummages through mounds of uncollected garbage in search of "toys".

Hordes of green flies, cockroaches and rats scurry for cover as the young boy forages deeper into the garbage with his bare hands.

A few metres away a group of young girls run up and down rivulets of raw sewage flowing through their parents' home along Mukonde Street in Mufakose.

They are happily playing house oblivious of the danger to which they are exposing themselves.

This scenario is not unique to Mufakose. It has become prevalent in most of Harare's high-density areas where garbage is never collected.

The areas have also been without running water for years.

Taps in suburbs such as Tafara and Mabvuku have been dry for four years while residents of Budiriro, Mufakose, Kambuzuma, Glen View, Mt Pleasant, Greendale and Kuwadzana only get intermittent water supply.

In some suburbs, residents continue to fetch their drinking water from heavily polluted streams and shallow wells they have dug just outside their homes.

When there is running water raw sewage spews out at every street corner exposing residents to water-borne diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

The lush community recreational facilities that were once a common feature of the "Sunshine City" have virtually crumbled with football pitches having been turned into dump sites.

Youths now spend their time playing soccer in the dusty, potholed and littered streets where motorists struggle to navigate.

In Harare's central business district (CBD) many traffic lights don't work while in the high-density suburbs street lighting is virtually non-existent.

Vagrants and street children have turned shop verandas and alleys in the city centre into their homes.

Every morning, shop attendants have to scrub fresh human excreta from their doorways and verandas.

Kombis pick up and drop passengers anywhere they want causing accidents and disrupting the flow of traffic.

Residents are not amused by the chaos in the city and the deterioration of service provision five months after the city council started charging rates and services in foreign currency.

"It's an insult to residents," said Dryden Mugombi of Glen View.

"We have been paying huge bills in foreign currency since February but nothing has improved apart from the efficiency with which council sends estimated bills for services it does not offer."

Harare businessman Moses Mazhande said council was failing to provide service because all its revenue was being gobbled up by the huge municipal wage bill.

"Council employees are among the highest paid workers and yet they are the worst performing entity in the country," Mazhande said.

He urged councils to charge rates that related to what ordinary workers across the country were earning.

Civil servants, who constitute the highest percentage of the workforce in the country, earn US$100 a month.

Arnold Gwesheni of Kambuzuma said: "Residents are saying if they are paying for water and refuse collection, why is the city council failing to provide the services?

"Where is the money going?"

The Combined Harare Residents' Association (CHRA) also expressed shock at the continued deterioration of service delivery in the city.

CHRA chairman Simbarashe Moyo said it was "fraudulent" for the council to force residents to pay for services they were not receiving.

He urged council to prioritise service provision instead of awarding its employees better salaries and perks.

"If the City of Harare is paying such hefty salaries, then they do not have any excuse for neglecting their core business of restoring Harare to its sunshine status," said Moyo whose association is an umbrella body for residents' associations in Harare.

But Harare Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda said service delivery had improved since the council started charging services in foreign currency.

But he was quick to add that a lot still needed to be done because "everything" had collapsed when he came into office following his nomination by MDC-T last year.

"I think you agree with me that the city is now cleaner than before but I also agree that a lot still needs to be done," Masunda said.

He urged residents to settle their outstanding bills adding that council was working hard to ensure that normalcy returns in Harare.

"Residents should be part of the solution rather than be part of the problem," he said.

Masunda, who sits on several boards of companies, said the council was working with private firms and multilateral agencies to ensure that Harare retains its "Sunshine City" status.

"For example, we have struck a deal with Lafarge and Sisk to help in the clean up exercises in Mabvuku and Tafara and Zimbabwe Leaf Tobacco is doing the same in Kambuzuma and Warren Park," he said.

The mayor bemoaned the lack of qualified and professional people among the crop of councillors saying it was hampering council efforts to discharge its mandate.

There have been complaints that most of the councillors lacked the basic knowledge to carry out their mandates because they are young and most of them were political activists before they were voted into office.

"There is a huge skills gap in the council and this is affecting the way we discharge our mandate," Masunda said. "I have problems filling committees such as engineering, human resources and accounting."

Masunda even took the matter up with the Minister of Local Government and Urban and Rural Development, Ignatious Chombo, urging him to appoint professional people to councils through the special interest groups quota.

"But out of the 11 he appointed, only four are real professionals who can stand up for the job," said Masunda, himself a lawyer by profession.

Meanwhile, health experts recently warned of a possible outbreak of cholera because of the deteriorating unhygienic conditions in Harare.

They said cholera may not be completely eradicated in the near future because underlying causes remained unattended to.

According to the World Health Organisation over 4 200 people have died of cholera in the country since August last year.

For young Samson, the risk of contracting cholera is as close as the distance between his mouth and hands.