Centre-local relations have been an area of controversy in Zimbabwean local governance both as a discipline and as a practice. Local authorities have traded blows with central government particularly accusing the responsible Ministry of reducing them to spectators in their own field through excessive ministerial intervention. Meanwhile the ministry of local government has cracked the whip on local authorities accusing them of mismanagement and compromised service delivery. The independent media has described the scenario as a “Bloodbath” in local authorities. What appears to be misconstrued by many however is the fact that the governing legal and institutional framework of local governance in Zimbabwe provides room for the responsible Minister to legally enable or disable local authority administration. This governing framework has been and is still the “Achilles heel” of local authorities and the raison d’être of ministerial intervention in Zimbabwe.

The discourse on decentralisation theoretically supports central government supervision of local government. The exercise of such powers by the central government of Zimbabwe is mired in controversy. Mayors are often suspended and/or dismissed to safeguard so-called "public interests". In particular, those who are from the opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Change, have been greatly affected in this regard. The supervisory interventions of the Zimbabwe African National Unity-Patriotic Front led national (central) government have raised questions about the very existence of local democracy and the parameters within which supervision should be implemented. The inadequacy of the laws regulating central supervision over local government and, in some cases, the blatant disregard of such laws by the supervising authority have left mayors vulnerable to arbitrary suspensions and/or dismissal. Such interventions have been motivated mainly by sinister political objectives rather than a genuine desire to improve local governance. A case study methodology focusing on the supervision of mayors in Zimbabwe since independence has been adopted. Keywords: Local government, local autonomy, mayors, supervision, power politics, decentralisation, Zimbabwe

The discourse is on the Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) in health, a policy reform intervention by the World Health Organization, and focuses on Zimbabwe's response, and the subsequent health policy framework.

The years 2007 and 2008 are of special reckoned in the history of Zimbabwe as the economy plunged into a meltdown and professionalism suddenly became an irrelevant status. Institutions in the public sector struggled for relevance as they frantically sought to retain skilled and qualified medical personnel. The maternity service delivery system in local authorities could not escape from the crisis hence the study sought to explore the degree of staff attrition in the sector, major causes, effects and measures of reducing staff attrition. The study involved the collection and analysis of data from 12 council clinics providing maternity services for the period 2007 -2008. The authors argue that, the state of the economy has got a strong bearing on the level of staff attrition in organisations. Since medical staff are skilled professionals they can easily leave for greener "pastures" hence the need for Councils to improve working conditions.