Chaos rocks council

Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Municipal Reporter
CHAOS reigned supreme in a closed door council meeting last Wednesday as councillors were at each other’s throats over the appointment of council committee chairpersons after one councillor with a pending court case of fraud was elected to lead the audit committee.

Other councillors said letting such a person lead the audit committee was equivalent to sending a mosquito to a malaria conference saying he should be cleared by the courts first before he was tasked with leading a committee where honesty is a virtue.

The meeting saw the faction-ridden council being divided into two camps as one faction led by ward 28 councillor, Collet Ndhlovu claimed they wanted to rid the local authority of elements linked to suspended Deputy Mayor, Councillor Gift Banda.

Clr Banda has strong links to one of the MDC-T deputy presidents Ms Thokozani Khupe while Clr Ndhlovu is reportedly linked to another faction led by another of the party’s deputy presidents, Nelson Chamisa, which has come to be known as the Cobra faction.

Impeccable sources revealed that all hell broke loose when Ward 22 councillor Rodney Jele was nominated to lead the audit committee, with councillors questioning the legality of his appointment as he had a pending court case involving the illegal sale of a residential stand.

Clr Jele is alleged to have played a middleman’s role in the sale of a stand by Ward 23 councillor, Thobani Ncube. Clr Ncube, according to court papers, defrauded one Ms Vainah Moyo (54) a total of $12 000 after selling a stand in Matsheumhlope to two different people, who were both sourced by Clr Jele.

Bulawayo Mayor, Councillor Martin Moyo confirmed the fracas but revealed that they had resolved to treat the matter with kids’ gloves and wait for the courts to first make a decision before they could come up with a position.

“At the end of the day this was a matter of opinion. We must not forget that a person is innocent until proven guilty, the majority of councillors felt that we could not convict Clr Jele, instead the courts will make that decision.

“Besides, I feel it is a straight forward issue anyway, if either of the two councillors are proven by the courts to have done something wrong we will then ask them to step down but until then there is nothing which stops them from continuing their duties,” said Clr Moyo.

Sources claimed that both Clr Moyo and the city’s Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube had advised against the election of Clr Jele arguing that it could give the council legal headaches in future.

“We tried in vain to block the election of Clr Jele because we felt we couldn’t have someone with a pending court case involving fraud leading the audit committee, even the town clerk advised against it but Clr Ndhlovu had seemingly mobilised the majority of councillors to his corner.

“What councillors fail to realise is that the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing is closely watching us and it is such mistakes that will make us face the full wrath of the ministry,” said the source.

The full list of elected council committee chairpersons include; councillors Nephat Sibanda (Finance and Development), Gideon Mangena (Future Water Supplies), Ndhlovu (Town Lands and Planning), Lilian Mlilo (Health, Housing and Education), Jele (Audit) and Ernest Rafamoyo (Environmental Management and Engineering Services).

When the initial motion to rotate councillors was moved by Clr Sibanda last month there were also chaotic scenes at the council chambers which saw some councillors even attempting to throw out Clr Ndhlovu for “inappropriate” dressing.

According to Urban Councils Act Section 103, council can rotate council committees every August but this has not happened at the Bulawayo City Council since 2009. In the previous council the then Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister, Dr Ignatius Chombo had to intervene to calm the storm after councillors were again at each other’s throats over being at the helm of the committees.

In 2014, at the height of a number of councillors defecting to the then MDC Renewal team, Ward 2 Councillor; Sithabile Mataka penned a similar motion where she called on council to change council committees, including chairpersons of committees, mayor and deputy mayor.