By Audrey Rundofa
Germany delegates paid a courtesy call to the Harare Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni to enhance the existing partnership with the City of Munich.
Cllr Manyenyeni met with urban development planning head of mobility section Geiorg-Friendrich Koppen, town planning project management urban history Gerhard Gross and business development emerging markets for Green City Project Heidi Schiller on 15 of January in Harare.
Cllr Manyenyeni said the relationship between Munich and Harare continues to be copied as an example and it works very well.
“Almost every six months there is some engagement or some relationship between two sides so we are happy to have you around,” he said.
He also said there are several challenges that Harare is facing such as the size of the city.
“This particular mission is very important to us and it is so relevant to the demands facing Harare. We are facing challenges in managing our mobility.”
“The city has outgrown itself in terms of design and it needs a solution that fits Harare for its size and for its future. We are ten times our design capacity. This is beginning to show in our roads mobility.”
“We need to move a gear up setting up solutions. We don’t have the right size. We are two million people in Harare or maybe four million people. It does not present us with more modern solutions like underground trains. It cannot be supported by our economy with our population but we sit and look at our selves. There are things we share ideas and through exchanges we will be able to learn and copy some and not all the options we need for Harare,” said Mayor Manyenyeni.
The Mayor believes that the coming of the Germans will also be an eye opener to certain things the city is doing right or wrong.