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The company was US$500 000 more expensive than the other bidders.
Local Government, Rural and Urban Development Minister Ignatius Chombo yesterday suggested that the city should renegotiate the price of the vehicles with Paza Bustar, the winners of the tender or look for cheaper alternatives. He made the remarks during a meeting with the city’s committee chairpersons, Acting Mayor Emmanuel Chiroto, town clerk Dr Tendai Mahachi and chamber secretary Mrs Josephine Ncube and special interest councillors Sasha Jogi and Hiernymo Torongo.
He gave the city two weeks to respond to issues he raised.
“You awarded the tender to a more expensive company. The vehicles are more expensive by US$500 000,” he said. The purchase of the vehicles means the city will have 47 refuse compactors implying that each of the city’s 46 wards would be allocated a truck. The city has 20 operational refuse trucks and three skip bin trucks. The city is also buying four skip trucks from Croco Motors at a cost of US$527 000.
He said in future council should consider buying from manufacturers. Alternatively, the Minister suggested council should have gone to the manufacturers and compared the price at source with that by the supplier to allow for a price reduction.
He complained that there was a lot of garbage on the streets of Harare and urged the city to quickly resolve the tender issue. He also used the meeting to report back to the councillors and management on his meeting with special interest councillors earlier in the week. The special interest councillors gave a damning assessment of the leadership at Town House and also alleged rampant corruption by both councillors and management. They also alleged that some city directors were moonlighting and stripping the city of assets.
Minister Chombo said he was giving the report back as a way of increasing transparency.
He gave the city a number of tasks that should be attended to in the next two weeks which include addressing the issue of billboards, finding a partner for the quarry station, mushrooming car sales, issue of councillors leading housing co-operatives, and the discrepancies in the pricing of land which at times have seen land in low density suburbs being sold cheaper than that in high density areas.
He also asked the council to address the issue of housing co-operatives and the wanton parceling of land to churches. He challenged Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda led council to show what it has done which beats what the former Mayor Eng Elias Mudzuri did. Clr Chiroto promised to attend to the issues raised.
Online Reporter