Women urged to attend budget consultations

By Stephen Chadenga

The Women Coalition of Zimbabwe (WicoZ) Midlands chapter has urged
women from the province to actively participate in the 2020 local
authorities budget consultations expected this month.

WicoZ provincial vice chairperson, Florence Guzha said women bore the
brunt of most social problems hence needed to ensure that more money
is allocated to services such as water and sanitation among others.

“Gone are the days when women shun budget meetings,” Guzha said at a
recent WicoZ Midlands chapter discussion in Gweru.

“Right now women suffer the most as they spend long hours in queues at
boreholes. Yet when council start budget consultations most women do
not participate. There is need for women to be active in the budget
formulation and demand allocation of resources to areas that directly
affect them.”

WicoZ provincial coordinator, Vimbai Nhutsve-Musengi echoed the same
sentiments and said women should participate at all levels of the
budget consultation process.

“There is need for participation from ward level up to the thematic
sub-sectors,”she said.

MDC national spokesperson and women qouta legislator, Thabitha Khumalo
said it was disheartening that women continued to play a peripheral
role in issues that directly affect them.

She said women needed to be bold and claim their space in decision
making processes.

“This habit of waiting for men to decide on our behalf is old and
should be totally discarded,”she told radiovop.

“Women should not only participate in budget making processes but in
all governance processes. Over and above this they should have an
appetite for positions of authority. There is nothing for us as women
without us.”
Khumalo said women should also participate in the national budget
processes and advance issues that affect them.