Harare

The starting point is a decision to remove a data layer. Harare scrapped its BIQ enterprise system in May 2019 at 92% implementation, after its audit committee found it could not generate a reliable trial balance, and then billed manually for five years while the procurement regulator blocked two replacements. Council officials later told a commission of inquiry the city was losing about US$70M a year in uncollected revenue without a working system. In April 2024 it re-engaged the original vendor for US$2.6M.

While the back office was being reassembled, the front counter went digital. From mid-2024 the council-owned parking company added QR codes, a USSD short code and a chatbot, and on 1 December 2025 converted its first city-centre streets into unmanned zones where sensors and monitoring software replace the marshals. In those blocks cash is no longer accepted and non-payment brings clamping after a grace period — convenience for motorists with mobile money, a barrier for everyone else.

The largest bet is on water. Working with two contractors, the city had installed more than 23,000 prepaid smart water meters by May 2026, topped up through mobile money, under a government-brokered partnership the 2026 budget values at US$342 million for 320,000 meters, a billing system and rehabilitation of the Morton Jaffray waterworks. Valve theft trails the rollout, and a resident is challenging it in the High Court: the city's water by-laws provide only for post-paid supply, and a tap that closes without credit, she argues, is disconnection without notice.