HARARE city fathers say there is no proper communication system at Town House, a situation which they say has resulted in most information coming out through social media.
The councillors blasted management for taking sensitive issues to social media, including the suspension of town clerk Hosiah Chisango this week.
This emerged during a full council meeting held at Town House on Tuesday this week, at which Chisango briefly appeared and was shown the door just after journalists had been ejected from the chamber to allow the city fathers resolve the issue.
Ward 41 councillor Kudzai Kadzombe said Chisango’s suspension was all over social media, but councillors as the employer were unaware of it.
“We woke up in the morning and saw social media filled with the letter suspending the town clerk and we, as councillors, were are not informed of it,” Kadzombe said
However, mayor Jacob Mafume seemed to brush the issue aside saying he would look into it later after they had dealt with other matters since the meeting had it on chronology.
“All we thought was that it will be on the first agenda of this meeting,” Kadzombe added.
Meanwhile, councillors fumed over inability to procure fuel in the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG), saying this contributed to poor service delivery.
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They expressed displeasure at council’s inability to settle debts for fuel in ZiG.
Finance committee chairperson Costa Mande (ward 14 councillor, Kambuzuma) said when the ZiG was pegged at US$1:ZiG14, it was easy for the local authority to acquire fuel for service delivery.
“All along, everything was quite well when the ZiG was stable against the US dollar. Getting fuel was easier because some of our suppliers were agreeing to be paid in ZiG,” he said.
“Then we started mixing currencies, paying some in the US dollar and others in ZiG. Still, we were not having a problem.
“But then these suppliers started falling off one by one until a few weeks ago, we were left with only one supplier who was agreeing to give us fuel expressly in ZiG.”
Mafume responded saying that they sent their papers to the Local Government ministry so that the local authority would be included on the list of entities that get ZiG fuel from suppliers.
“(We have) refuse collection, water and sewage (which need) to be on the list of those people (and entities) that get ZiG fuel because as fate would have it, people are dumping the ZiG at council. We have ZiG, but we cannot buy fuel,” Mafume said.
