HARARE City councillors have blasted council management for prioritising self-enrichment, showering themselves with luxurious cars and lucrative perks, while neglecting service delivery.
This emerged during a full council meeting on Tuesday where councillors expressed concern over poor and in some cases, non-existent services while management lived comfortably.
Human resources committee chairperson, councillor George Mujajati said management had misplaced priorities.
“The issue of priority is the biggest problem,” Mujajati said.
“We are falling behind on buying fuel for the cars that deal with service delivery whereas we are buying cars to park outside for our benefits.”
Ward 16 councillor Denford Ngadziore (Mabelreign) said there was need for a lifestyle audit as council managers were living beyond their means.
“Let’s make sure that everything to do with drainage maintenance, sewage preparations, water and waste management must be on the top of the council priority’s list, meaning any other [budgetary] allocation [benefiting] either an official or director should be at the bottom and by doing so will be labelled an entity which values service delivery,” he said.
A commission of inquiry investigating council operations since 2017 has unearthed unbridled corruption involving top management at the municipality.
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Early this week, mayor Jacob Mafume suspended acting town clerk Hosiah Chisango over a litany of allegations involving corruption, including that he illegally awarded a US$9,2 million tender to red-flagged Zanu PF-linked businesspersons.
Four other council bosses have also been dragged to court over the same tender scandal.
In the same meeting, Mafume blasted the council business development unit committee for delaying the implementation of a solar energy project.
“I’m upset because I told people that we needed to have solar plants by now to be able to have a home-grown solution for energy,” he said.
“The business committee, in its wisdom, or lack thereof, up to now is dilly-dallying, shilly-shallying and avoiding just coming up with a decision. Now, rural district councils are putting eight megawatt stations and a city the size of Harare does not have power.
“I have said time and time again we have the sun everyday. We need solar energy to replace the cost of energy that is going up, but no one seems to understand.”
Added Mafume: “We are going to meet with Zesa, with the Minister of Energy and everybody else, and maybe ask them to assist to come up with some of these things and push the business committee to come up with these solutions itself.”
It also emerged during the meeting that councillors are divided over the leasing of Shawasha grounds in Mbare to private players.
Ngadziore argued that the Shawasha grounds should be leased to a private player to develop structures for more than 4 000 vendors.
