By Municipal Reporter
Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume together with other five councilors were yesterday suspended by the Minister of Local Government and Public Works, July Moyo, for gross incompetence and misconduct of duty.
The suspension of Mafume ,his deputy Luckson Mukunguma and councilors Hammy Madzingira (Ward 10), Costa Mande (Ward 14), Anthony Shingadeya (Ward 11) and Tonderai Chakaredza (Ward 31) was confirmed by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services ,Nick Mangwana ,on his Twitter handle yesterday.
“Harare Mayor, @JMafume, his Deputy councilor Mukunguma and 4 other Harare councilors who have cases pending before the courts have been suspended by the Minister of Local Government until the finalization of their cases,” tweeted Mangwana.
All the suspended councilors have criminal cases pending before the courts.
Mayor Mafume was recently arrested by the Special Anti-Corruption Unit (SACU) and is facing charges of trying to bribe a key State witness in his corruption case which is before the High Court.
Mafume’s deputy Mukunguma was also recently arrested in Hwange for criminal abuse of office.
The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) said Mukunguma was arrested on allegations of unprocedurally selling residential stands in Harare’s Highfield suburb.
A number of Harare councilors are facing criminal charges before the courts and this has crippled the effective functioning of the municipality.
Some Harare City council top officials namely , town clerk Hosiah Chisango, housing Director Addmore Nhekairo, human capital director Cainos Chingombe and finance director Tendai Kwenda were also arrested for criminal abuse of office.
Recently President Mnangagwa bemoaned the deplorable state of the country’s towns and said that Government will not sit on its laurels while the MDC councilors are ruining the cities.
“MDC councils have failed. I think next time we must elect ZANU PF councilors to run the affairs of our towns. But as Government, we will not wait while the MDC is destroying our cities and towns.
“We sat down and discussed that we are the owners of all cities and towns, so we are in the process of seeing how best we can provide services to the people in towns because MDC has failed to do that. We will do it alone so that our people can live a comfortable life in towns,” said President Mnangagwa last week.
Social commentator, Tafadzwa Munetsi, said a commission should be appointed to run the affairs of Harare to save the City from degenerating into inhabitable place.
“A Commission should have been in place way back. People’s lives are in danger due to corruption and lack of service delivery. In Harare people are going for weeks without water and it’s a time bomb for cholera. The Commission should be appointed as soon as possible,” said Munetsi.
If a commission is put in place in Harare, it will not be the first time as there have been some commissions in the past with one being led by Sekai Makwavarara and the latest led by Ms Bella Manyakara in 2018.
