HARARE City Council (HCC) has been plunged into another scandal as it emerged yesterday that it has been operating with two town clerks for almost a year, NewsDay has learnt.
In an alleged unholy pact, town clerk Hosiah Chisango and human capital director Mathew Marara awarded themselves lucrative grade one contracts.
It is also alleged that Chisango's contract at the helm of HCC expired in 2023 after serving his initial four years and was not renewed.
According to the Local Gov-ernment and Public Works ministry circular number 86 of 2018, heads of local authorities are supposed to serve for four years.
“Heads of local authorities shall be employed on a four-year contract which may be renewable once, subject to satisfactory performance, however, the term limits shall not be applied in retrospect,” the circular read.
However, sources at Town House yesterday said Chisango’s contract was not renewed, adding that he was operating on an alleged fake contract.
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“It is not possible two have two grade one positions in an organisation and Marara has what he called a grade one B position and automatically, he becomes a parallel town clerk. Marara operates like a town clerk with the same responsibilities as Chisango,” the sources said.
“They appointed themselves to such positions as an unholy pact between the two close allies.”
For the grade one B position Marara did not go for any interviews and this was not approved by the Local Government Board.
The two are said to have taken delivery of Toyota Land Cruisers 300 series as part of their contracts.
“This was an unholy pact and they illegally appointed themselves and this was done when mayor Jacob Mafume was ousted as mayor some time ago and this actually surprised him when he bounced back,” the sources said.
Mafume yesterday said he had approached human resources committee chairperson George Mujajati and his team over the matter.
“I have asked the human resources chair George Mujajati and his committee to obtain contracts from the two and verify the propriety of the contracts and, if there are anomalies, swift action will be taken,” Mafume said.
Mujajati confirmed the existence of the setup, but distanced himself from the issue.
“Yes it is true and l am not happy at all because one day l will be answerable. This was done through the job evaluation exercise. I was not part of that, this was done just before last year's elections and l don’t want to comment further,” he said.
“I was appointed the human resources chairperson in January this year. l am aware of the matter and have since approached the Local Government Board for advice and it said we should write names.
“We have sat as a committee and we came up with resolutions and that is with the Local Government ministry.”
Asked for a comment, Marara said: “No comment.”
The embattled Chisango was recently granted bail by the High Court after spending nearly two months in remand prison over tender fraud.
Councillors at the local authority and some senior managers resisted his return saying his charges should be cleared by the courts.
“Whenever Chisango is around at Town House he creates a toxic environment and this becomes worse when he joins hands with Marara,” sources said.
A commission of inquiry probing the operations of Harare City Council from 2017 to date has since questioned the US$329 000 compensation paid to Marara.
Marara received US$329 000 as compensation for the period he was on suspension over corruption charges before he was reinstated.
He was the city’s housing director and was suspended in 2020 over allegations of corruption involving residential stands.
The senior official was suspended alongside other top HCC officials, among them Edgar Dzehonye and Tonderai Mukora, from the survey section.