Staff Reporter

The Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) led Harare City Council (HCC) has been slammed for prioritising the purchase of staff pool vehicles at the expense of service delivery.

A source who works at the Harare City Council revealed that HCC bought 30 staffpool vehicles at the time when Harare suburbs were spending days with uncollected garbage.

According to the source, the vehicles worth over US$700 000 were delivered last week and commissioned by Harare Mayor, Jacob Mafume.

“Council bought 30 vehicles that will be used by managers and other top bosses. The total cost of the vehicles was slightly above US$700 000. These vehicles comprised of 20 Nissan NP200 trucks and 10 Nissan Navara single cabs,” said the source. (so are these luxury vehicles as you indicated in your intro?)

The source said that the vehicles came at a time when HCC was struggling with garbage collection because of lack of adequate refuse collection vehicles.

“It’s shocking that the City fathers will prioritise luxury vehicles when the City has few refuse collection vehicles. As we speak, most suburbs are going for days with uncollected garbage. However, the Council has the audacity to neglect service delivery just to please its top bosses,” said the source.

The same source suggested that the same money that was used to purchase the staff pool vehicles could have been used to purchase at least 12 refuse collection trucks.

According to the source, during the commissioning of the vehicles last week, Mafume shockingly declared that the Nissan vehicles would also be used for garbage collection.

“Why use staff pool vehicles for refuse collection? Why can’t they just buy proper trucks for the job?” queried the source.

Meanwhile, efforts to get a comment from HCC acting spokesperson, Innocent Ruwende and Harare Residents Trust Association chairperson, Nesbert Samu were futile as their mobile phones were not being picked.