Quality urban service delivery: A call of the day

 BY WORKU BELACHEW

Genre: Editorial 

Published on The Ethiopian Herald, Friday , March 15 

Tsehay Wolde-Gebriel, a resident of Addis Ababa expresses her ambivalence regarding the ongoing development effort in Addis Ababa this way: “In terms of construction such as railroad and other road projects, the city is really stepping forward. In addition, most shabby looks of the capital have now been exchanged for magnificent edifices.” Diametrically opposite to the achievements she mentioned, Tsehay seriously criticizes gaps which are disappointing her and other residents. “The delivery of basic service in the city is at stake. Water and electricity supply disruptions have become common and transportation scarcity has already appeared as a defining attribute of the capital,” she sadly says. 

 

 Residents of the capital, regardless of age and sex, with no doubt, share her feelings.

Addis Ababa is now in a renewal process. Heavy construction vehicles and machines are common to see here and there, demolishing previous neighbourhoods which were too unsafe for residents. Bulldozers, dump trucks ... roar day and night to turn these neighbourhoods into a livable one. To the contrary, problems that may originate from poor coordination of municipal bodies and/or failure to dispose one's responsibility are leaving residents with lots of discomforts. In view of dismantling these difficulties, in various occasions, key decision-making entities of the city and other stakeholders, attempted a lot joining hands. Though one could not say all their efforts is back to square one, the improvements seem to be so sluggish. Due to that, damages on public utility lines are rampant. These damages apart from cutting residents from service provision, they are accounting for delaying of constructions on the scheduled time.

In light of overcoming some of these challenges, Forum for Social Studies (FSS) — a policy think tank registered as an Ethiopian Residents Charity—had brought government decision-makers, representatives of civil societies and the general public under same roof earlier this month. A document which FSS published puts it that the capital has a long way to go in ensuring effective public provisions. Further, the workshop underlined that the city is lagging behind in urban service delivery and a lot is to be desired on its side.

Participants of the workshop took this opportunity to deliberate on the various ways out of this challenges. For instance, in terms of dealing with the ever acute shortage of transportation, increasing the number of mass and multi-modal transportation systems was sought-after as a short and long term solution.

Such discussions are so essential to identify gaps and brainstorm on the possible solutions. Hopefully, the various researched inputs collected from the workshop would be a steadfast ground to better serve residents of the capital.

However, there are also menaces which are still disappointing residents and visitors of the capital. Apart from the solutions suggested in the said workshop, transportation problem could also be addressed through strict control on the available modes. There are hundreds of code three support giving taxis, for instance in the capital, but most of them, if not all, never put their route plate in a visible place. Hence, they “serve” on routes they could collect extra profit only, particularly when transport officers are absent from terminals.

Be that as it may, public utility lines could be spared from damage by timely relocating them. Moreover, road constructions should not be causes for basic service disruptions such as water and electricity. Relevant bodies, need to cooperate and do construction without affecting residents. Particularly, potable water has no substitute. When disruption occurs to this important service, residents would be exposed to additional cost and wastage of their time. Worse, persons with physical disability and elders could hardly cope this problem. Thus, other short lived options need to be put in place until water pipes can be permanently relocated. This could include, installing community tap water in nearby areas, installing temporary pipes or dispensing water by water tank trucks....

Most importantly, completing road projects timely stand as the major one to give the problem a lasting solution. Still, we should not start from zero. One can take ample lesson from Bole road project which had seen completion timely. The promising progress being seen in the LRT project could also be another.

In a nutshell, the city administration along with key stakeholders need to stringently work to best address complaints of residents such as Tsehay.