MDC-T to descend on Beitbridge councillors

MDC

MDC-T, smarting from embarrassing reports of corruption in local authorities run by its members, says it is determined to weed out all bad apples.

The party’s national executive passed a resolution to fire all councillors found on the wrong side of the law in local authorities it controls.

This comes hard on the heels of the exposure by this paper of a housing scandal in the Beitbridge Town Council where most councillors belong to MDC-T.

In an interview, Mr Tapuwa Mashakada, who has been tasked by the party (MDC-T) to lead the investigations, said they were intensifying their mission and were eager to remove rotten apples from the basket.

“I can tell you that we are through with Chitungwiza and we have actually fired 23 councillors after we discovered numerous irregularities over the sale and allocation of stands that included residential, industrial and commercial. We actually learnt that residents were made to pay bribes for them to secure stands,’’ said Mr Mashakada.

Mr Mashakada said Beitbridge was their next destination and said justice would soon prevail and all dishonest leaders made to pay the price.

“What we want to show these councillors is that they should be guided by three principles. We want them to offer good service delivery, good governance and accountability. After our investigations we will talk to the Minister of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development, Dr Ignatius Chombo, to allow us to appoint caretaker councillors before any elections are held,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, the Government will soon embark on a project to train urban councillors on their key functions and responsibilities in the wake of increased cases of corruption within the local authorities, a Government official has said.

In an interview, Local Government, Urban and Rural Development Minister, Dr Ignatius Chombo, said the level of corruption especially in urban authorities had left the Government worried and thus the need to educate them on how best to handle their offices.

He said the workshops were mainly meant to avoid the present scenario where councillors confused their roles with those of council officials thereby impacting negatively on service delivery.

“Last year we had the opportunity of training over 2 000 urban and rural councillors but it appears those workshops did not yield much results especially when you look at all the corruption taking place within the urban councils,’’ Dr Chombo said.

A couple of weeks ago Sunday News uncovered a housing scandal at the Beitbridge Town Council that has seen the councillors involved being suspended.
Other local authorities that have also been involved in corruption allegations include Bulawayo, Harare and Chitungwiza.

“The main reason for the training workshop is to avoid role conflicts which have become the order of the day in most urban councils; some of these councillors do not even know the boundaries of their wards.

“They thought on being elected as councillors, they had got some form of employment that is accompanied by a substantial allowance, which is really not true as they are simply there to pass resolutions on behalf of the residents,’’ Dr Chombo said.

He said most of the councillors were focusing on personal gains and benefiting their respective parties and thus ending up in conflict with council officials.
It was reported that Bulawayo councillors had rejected a government directive on allowances saying most of them were not gainfully employed and the proposed figure of US$150 was not in tandem with their duties.

Dr Chombo said it was important to note that the councillors were not bindingly entitled to allowances but were simply being given a token of appreciation.
"If we allow these councillors to continue overstepping their authority and conflicting the roles of council officials we will end up having more cases of financial discord."

Meanwhile Dr Chombo said his Ministry would soon ensure that they appoint their quarter of government appointed councillors in all local authorities so as to support the inexperienced councillors whom some were grossly abusing their offices.

"These councillors will be strictly appointed as per experience in various crucial fields like accountancy, law and health, they are meant to provide that expertise that is lacking in most local authorities although they won't have the power to vote and we really hope the elected councils would take cue from them," Dr Chombo said.

In a related issue Dr Chombo said his Ministry had finally received the budget proposal for Bulawayo City Council almost two months late and were since going through it.

"We have since received 20 proposals from the 25 urban authorities and what I can say is so far we have rejected most of them as they do not adhere to the 70 to 30 percent ratio, but we are working on rectifying that anomaly so that residents are not short changed," the Minister said.

He said they were also considering reintroduce the old system of monitoring the performance of councils and if any recommendations are passed that prejudiced the ratepayers they would be in a position to overrule them.