HARARE City Council management model is chaotic and has been subjected to political interference and ruinous behaviour with councillors usurping executive powers, a council official has said.
Appearing before a commission of inquiry yesterday, Harare assistant executive Matthew Marara accused councillors of overstepping their roles by acting more like employees than a governing board.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa appointed the commission led by retired judge Justice Maphios Cheda to investigate corruption and financial mismanagement at Town House in May last year.
Marara said he joined the City of Harare in 2009 as a training and development manager, adding that the current administration at Town House was using a model which was not ideal to run the capital city.
“The current council that we have is usurping executive powers. Council should be operating like a board, but our councillors are always at work with us, as if they are employees of council. I'm one person who has been targeted, I think mainly because of my background,” Marara said.
He accused councillors of trying to get rid of him from Town House.
“Councillors want me out because I have always stood by the procedures that must be followed by council. On many occasions in committee meetings, I have pointed out certain resolutions that have been made by council, that are not their responsibility.
“But council, maybe of the capacity of the councillors, because I want to compare the times that we had commissions to run the City of Harare,” he said.
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Marara said council was running peacefully, while the commission was around.
“But when we have got a council of elected members, like the one that we are having right now, councillors tend to get into operations, to usurp the powers of the town clerk.”
“As I am saying this, I will say it without fear, but I know I am digging my own grave when I go back to council. But the truth must be known by the world, that this council of the City of Harare is not running things correctly.
“They choose which directives to follow and which ones not to follow. They put politics in certain issues which are administrative. We should not have politics at all. I think that’s how I can respond.”
He said committees, which were supposed to meet once a month, were holding at least three meetings a week.
“The model is not working in my view. As a strategist, I am the one who is supposed to assist the town clerk to give strategic direction of the organisation. Then the council would end up fine.
“But you find someone who does not even have the capacity, being appointed a chairperson and the decisions that chairperson makes are only directives which are coming from certain quarters, maybe from their political party. This is the situation that is there. It is a sad situation in council,” Marara said.
