MUTARE -Mayor, councilor Blessing Thandi has dismissed allegations of corruption levelled against city fathers and management, bragging that they are doing wonders as a city.
Thandi made the remarks while responding to questions during an Anti-Corruption Indaba organized by Transparency International Zimbabwe (TIZ) in Mutare yesterday, rubbishing recent claims that re-elected councilors illegally allocated themselves extra stands contrary to Urban Councils regulations limiting councilors to a single stand.
He also defended the planned US$750 000 expenditure on top of the range vehicles for top city officials as necessary to retain services of its top management.
Thandi stopped short of declaring that council was not corrupt, saying he was corrupt free and had a clear conscience, challenging the public to bring forward concrete evidence to substantiate corruption claims.
“There is no way I can give in to corruption because of my moral conscience. I have not received my decent stands, I as a mayor did not get a stand. It shows how concerned we are as a local authority to deal with corruption.
“The issue of pointing at corruption, let’s not just run to justify that there is corruption. If there is anything that is dubious or skeptical please provide with this information the public is at liberty to come and report with evidence any suspected cases of corruption,” he said.
On the purchase of vehicles he justified, “There is need to hasten to buy for them those vehicles. The contractual obligations that we have with those managers demand that we procure those vehicles for them.
“There is a lot of development that is happening on the ground, for us to retain the same management allow us to procure those vehicles.
“We are doing wonders as a city,” said Thandi.
Thandi also said under his custodianship, the city is on a paradigm shift, leading to the adoption of a Risk Policy aimed at providing standard operating procedures and guidelines to manage municipality affairs and minimize losses.
However National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO) eastern region director, Joseph Kauzani, urged public officials to focus on regaining public trust by embracing open engagement and mainstreaming citizen participation in governance.
Kauzani said this emergence of corruption has led to growing mistrust in the public, as he appealed to the municipality to institute frameworks that protects corruption whistle blowers.
“There is a lot of suspicion and growth of apathy in terms of engaging with duty bearers by the public. Public officials have adopted a defensive stance towards the public views.
“We need to make sure that as duty bearers we address allegations or counter allegations through transparency and accountability.
“The whistle blowing hotlines are functional but we need frameworks to protect those that bring up these issues to the fore,” said Kauzani.
Insiders have however, maintained that council passed a resolution to allocate stands to both incoming and retained councilors, despite the city’s housing waiting list standing at over 50 000 people.
Then councilors, some on their third terms, were recently parceled pieces of stands in the plush and affluent suburb of Murambi following a resolution from a Housing and Community Services Department meeting held recently.
The Urban Councils’ directive provides allocation, on condition of 40% payment of the stand’s purchase price, only once during first tenure of office and if a councilor is elected for a second term, they are not eligible, either in part of full payment.
Concerned Mutare residents want this mask of secretive deals peeled off to reveal the ugly face of corruption at Mutare City, as they increasingly become impatient at the alleged endless looting spree at Civic Centre.
Auditor General Mildred Chiri in a 2018 Urban Councils and Local Authorities report also exposed these land shenanigans, before the current municipality’s tenure, while successive Ministers of Provincial Affairs have sighted the same land scams.
A forensic land audit conducted by the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, released in 2015 by then Minister Savior Kasukuwere, also revealed that some councilors acquired commercial and residential stands for free.
