Online Reporter
Robson Sharuko
H-Metro Editor
THE Town Clerk of Harare’s salary of US$30 000, as revealed by Mayor Jacob Mafume earlier this week, is more than FOUR times what the Mayor of Johannesburg, receives per month.
Mafume told the Commission of Inquiry into the affairs of the City of Harare that Town Clerk, Hosiah Chisango, gets as much as US$30 000 a month.
His salary is about US$27 000 and the other perks then take his monthly income to US$30 000 a month.
Mafume said collectively, the City Council’s executives take home US$500 000 a month.
This translates to a staggering US$6 million a year.
The mayor said the executives also awarded themselves vehicles worth US$1 million.
There has been an outcry in Harare since these revelations because of the poor service delivery by the Council at a time when its executives are taking home such huge perks.
To highlight why the salaries which the City of Harare executives pocket are way out of order, H-Metro did a comparison with what the CEO of Joburg is getting as a salary.
Unlike in this country, where the mayor is largely ceremonial and the Town Clerk is the CEO of the city, in South Africa, the mayors are the CEOs of their cities.
This has been the case since 2000.
The Mayor of Johannesburg is Dada Morero, who took over in August last year.
In November last year, an agreement was struck for the Joburg mayor’s annual salary to be increased.
The Joburg city fathers approved a 3% hike to the remuneration which their CEO, which in this case is the Mayor, and Councillors, should receive as pay.
One hundred and forty six councillors voted in favour of increasing the perks.
Thirty three Councillors voted against the hike.
There were 70 Councillors who abstained from the vote.
The Joburg Councillors saw their annual salaries increased to about R580,000.
The changes meant that Moreno’s salary was increased to R1.54 million per year.
The comparison, and the irony, is just startling:
This is about US$81 724 as per yesterday’s exchange rate.
This also translates to a pay cheque of about US$6 833 a month for the Joburg Mayor.
This means that Chisango, the Harare Town Clerk, in just three months, is paid more than what the Joburg mayor gets per year.
Or, alternatively, what Moreno earns in four months is less than what Chisango is taking home in just one month, going by the figures which Mafume presented to the Commission this week.
The irony is that Joburg is the richest city in Africa and this means that it can afford to pay its mayor a fortune while Harare, whose Council leaders have always complained that their revenue streams are strained and they are not generating a lot of money, somehow, manages to pay its CEO the sum of US$30 000 a month.
Joburg is the most populous city in South Africa with an estimated population of about five million residents.
Last month, Investment migration firm Henley & Partners published a ranking of African cities with the wealthiest residents.
They chose Joburg as the richest city in Africa based mainly because of the number of millionaires living in the City of Gold.
The report said Joburg was home to 24 600 millionaires.
Joburg is also the home of the biggest stock exchange in Africa.
The Egyptian capital Cairo, which is home to 7,400 millionaires, took second place.
There are more billionaires in Cairo than any other part of Africa.
Cape Town took third place, Lagos as fourth and Nairobi, with 4 700 millionaires, was ranked fifth.
