The decision by the Harare City Council to disregard a full council resolution for a senior officer in the housing department to be sent on forced leave pending investigations over irregular land allocations has raised eyebrows in the local authority.
There are allegations that top officials are trying to protect the official for corrupt ends.
The scandal has sucked in Harare mayor Jacob Mafume, who is said to have been instrumental in the breach of the council protocols to protect Edgar Dzehonye, the council’s principal housing officer. The duo is said to have joined forces with other councillors and the human resources director Mathew Marara.
Instead, Marara has allegedly instigated the transfer of Fanny Machipisa from the housing department to be head of academic programmes at the council’s school of excellence.
The plot was to replace him with Dzehonye, who was key witness in the corruption cases against Marara and Mafume.
Marara and Mafume were acquitted by the courts. There is suspicion that Dzehonye played a part and this could be payback time.
According to a report by the audit committee headed by Blessing Duma,Ward 29 councillor who is the audit committee chairperson, Dzehonye and other officers responsible for overseeing land allocations were supposed to be placed on forced leave pending investigations.
The position was affirmed by the full council meeting on December 8, 2023.
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“That the acting human capital director sends all staff in the allocations division of the department of housing and community services on 14 days leave to facilitate investigations in to operations of this Division,” part of the minutes of the audit committee held on November 16, 2023 read.
“That the audit manager carries out urgent investigations in the allocations division into inter alia, issues outlined in the preamble above.”
On December , a full council meeting noted threats made against the chairperson of the audit committee for the resolutions and recommendations following a November 16, 2023 meeting to have Dzehonye and some officers suspended.
The meeting resolved that Marara should investigate threats on Duma and institute disciplinary hearings on perpetrators as well.
However, according to Duma, Marara ignored the resolutions and seven months on, Dzehonye and his team have not been suspended or investigated.
Marara went on to write a report transferring four officials, who include Machipisa which was submitted to the human resources committee allegedly on the orders of Mafume, who reportedly wants Dzehonye to take over as housing manager.
In all cases before the audit committee, Dzehonye is implicated in double allocation of stands.
Machipisa is a new manager in the housing department who was summoned by the audit committee to give evidence on issues to do with double allocation of residential stands.
He also testified against housing contracts between council and various developers including Shelter Zimbabwe whose contract expired in 2020, but the cancellation of the contract was only effected three years later.
Two full council meetings and more than eight special council meetings were convened after the December 8 resolution, but nothing was said about the suspension of Dzehonye and his colleagues from the allocation section.
The decision to transfer Machipisa was made on June 13 after his presentation before the audit committee on June 4 and 11.
On June 13, a special council meeting was held and referred the matter to the joint committee, which sat on 18 June.
The proposal to transfer Machipisa was shot down and surfaced after the human resources committee meeting on June 25.
The matter was shot down again on June 27.
A new set of minutes produced later had the case as a concluded matter in which Mafume used section 5c of the standing resolution which resolved items deemed as emergencies through the mayor.
This is when they allegedly railroaded the item for adoption by the full council meeting without giving councillor room to debate.
The move to transfer Machipisa came after he refused to allocate new councillor stands in western suburbs in line with a government directive that councillors get stands in the areas of jurisdiction.
Dzehonye was also witness against Marara.
Marara refused to comment on the matter.
Mafume said the decision to transfer Machipisa and the other three was reached by the audit committee, not himself and he cannot be blamed for that.
