CHITUNGWIZA mayor Philip Mutoti has come under fire for allegedly trying to “bury” the findings of a land audit that unearthed a massive land scam involving councillors, staff and himself.
by Albert Masaka
Impeccable sources told NewsDay that Mutoti initially wanted to use the audit findings to “get at his internal enemies” before making a volte-face after he discovered he was also implicated in the report.
“Mutoti had at first supported the idea of conducting the audit, as he had hoped that it would only touch on his enemies in council, but was not happy when he later found out that this was not so,” a councillor who declined to be named said.
“Such an audit cannot be conducted without the mayor’s blessings. There are a lot of things not well at this council. The mayor is causing confusion here. There is mistrust between most councillors and the mayor. There is a feeling he has something to do with the audit report’s findings which appeared in the media, but now, he is afraid he might also have been implicated. So he wants to use us to stifle the report.”
Well-placed sources said Mutoti last week hastily arranged a meeting to discuss the audit report, but the meeting ended prematurely following chaotic scenes when it emerged that some of Mutoti’s “supporters” had been trapped by the dragnet.
The mayor on Wednesday claimed the meeting had been adjourned after “poor attendance by Zanu PF councillors, and denied charges of trying to sweep the audit findings under the carpet.
Mutoti said: “What kind of story do you want to write? I am not fighting anyone. If you continue to ask me such type of questions, don’t ever phone me again. Don’t force me to answer you.”
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The report alleged that some councillors and workers were involved in a scam, parcelling out more than 100 stands to each other without paying anything to council and usurping the role of the urban planning department in the process.
“The agenda was to discuss the recent audit report which fingered councillors in a stands scam, the fate of (director of urban planning Conrad) Muchesa and town clerk (George Makunde)’s trip to Zambia among other things,” another source claimed.
“But the caucus meeting was postponed as it was felt by the councillors present that the mayor was bitter because he had been left out of the Zambian trip and may have been cited in the audit report.
“It’s rare for the mayor to attack management like that. We are suspicious of his motive.”
Makunde told the NewsDay on Friday that he was away on a study trip to Zambia.
