…Accused of milking council coffers
Top management face the axe as a central government officials bays for their blood, urging councilors to fire the entire management team, in a recent expose of corrupt shenanigans at Civic Centre reports Donald Nyarota in Mutare.
“This chaos, lack of planning, lack of action, centralized administration, egoistic maneuvering is completely unacceptable in the ministry,” charged Minister of Local Government Savior Kasukuwere.
Minister Kasukuwere was addressing a full council meeting, as he presented audit report findings to the Mayor of Mutare councilor Tatenda Nhamharare, which he described as ‘a document full of puzzling transactions.’
The audit report, the latest in a string of other such reports, exposes management sleaze in handling of financial affairs of the cash strapped municipality which has failed to pay workers in fourteen months.
Ironically Kasukuwere said the financial transactions indicated salaries as consuming the largest chunk of revenue, mostly in top management hefty allowances, loan advances among other pecks, with little left for service delivery.
The one thousand strong workforce was said to unsustainable for council operations, as the Minister questioned management decisions for ignoring the pay back log of workers while awarding top management with subsidized vehicle loans.
Said Kasukuwere, “The City of Mutare is operating unsustainably they are producing a budget but there is no resemblance between your budget and what you are actually collecting and spending.
“Secondly, the city is operating in defiance of the Urban Councils Act, Public Management Act, and various government policies and rules and procedures.
“What comes out is that your council is in serious financial crisis your various creditors $19 million and you are also owed $13 million. We have to take our responsibilities seriously.
“On top of this workers have not been paid for a very long time. You have an unsustainably huge workforce 1501 and this constitutes 85% of your revenue leaving 15% for service delivery the real work of the city council.”
Minister Kasukuwere also said the report clearly highlighted that city council was completely failing to meet its core obligations, financing non productive expenditure leaving the municipality teetering on the brink of collapse.
Another serious problem facing the municipality noted Kasukuwere, was a bank overdraft and lack of innovation to recover money from debtors, as he questioned the level of debate at Civic Centre.
Outspoken Minister of State for Manicaland Mandi Chimene was quick to respond, blasting the councilors for meekly submitting themselves to management.
Chimene, who never minces her words a habit which at this occasion endeared her to the handful of observers in the council chambers who clapped when she proposed that all top management be fired. So brazen was her attack on the management that she even singled out Human Resources Director Aaron Chemvura as the first she would fire if given a choice.
“To my surprise the councilors submit themselves to the management they are tossed around by this management, there is an attitude with the management of city of Mutare. They are so rough they send people as if they did not work for the money… (Pane anonzi Chemvura uyo shamwari resigner) there is this one called Chemvura please my colleague resign.
“Please accept our recommendations (musavanzwire tsitsi) don’t feel pity for them, fire them, because for Manicaland to move forward and Mutare which is the hub of the province the whole management should go,” she said.
Minister Kasukuwere hinted at what most observers felt was the inevitable, warning that while it was the duty of the Mayor and councilors, as employers to hire and fire, he would assist them to if they failed to make the right decisions.
He diplomatically evaded committing himself to action, despite having set a precedent in Gweru where he ordered councilors to fire all manager implicated in a similar audit, as he conducts a cleanup of urban councils.
What was also clear from the full council meeting was the palpable air of councilors’ disbelief to the vitriolic attack from the central government ministers, to the management, to whom they submit to more often than not.
To the keen observers some eccentric councilors, who have been trigger happy to shout corruption but never committing themselves to being on record for such accusations, fidgeted in their seats, turning their heads around to look at the gallery to some managers who sat behind.
It was clear they had never anticipated such a negative report, even the Mayor accused in many sectors of being in the pockets of the Town Clerk, Obert Muzawazi, was clearly perturbed by the report.
He was at loss of word that he initially turned down an offer to respond to the minister’s presentation, before stuttering through protocol and procedure of accepting the report and promising to do their “level best”.
“We thank your Minister for what you have done in an endeavor to help the city of Mutare going forward we shall try our level best to implement whatever recommendations that have been recommended in this report.”
As Minister Kasukuwere had rightly pointed out in his earlier presentation, there was no room for failure saying, “There should be a response from the management, city fathers and mothers we owe it to the residents of Mutare to provide them decent service delivery.
“So city of Mutare, Your Worship and your team have to work overtime and unpaid overtime to get this situation corrected its payback time, you have to pull; the council from the brink of disaster and that begins in earnest now…the city is in dire stress and we cannot stand by and watch this decay.
“And together we must the chart a way forward that will see this city restored to its original state, it can be done and it will be done, it has to be done there is no room for failure”.
Resident Associations, conspicuously absent in the meeting, have on several occasions accused management of being corrupt, will no doubt find buoyancy in the recent findings presented by central government.
Kasukuwere said the opportunity was now left for the councilors to read the full report and decide among themselves who should be fired first, tacitly hinting that heads had to roll.
“They are the city fathers, they are the ones who employ hire and fire, I don’t deal with the staff, I deal with the Mayor and company that’s where my buck stops, so if the Mayor therefore does not get the city to work I will help him to make the city work.”
