COMMENT: Govt must come down harder on corrupt urban councils

POOR and extremely greedy, many people elected as MDC representatives at local government and in Parliament take their election not as a call to serve, but as an opportunity to eat.

Therefore, as soon as they are elected, they go about looting land and money, while demanding perks that their offices don’t ordinarily entail. The past 20 years have been evidence of this insatiable appetite for eating, in most cases eating in corrupt circumstances. Around 2010 we observed with dismay as MDC councillors in Harare and elsewhere used their new-found positions to evict many people, including the elderly who had occupied council houses for decades, and helping themselves to the properties. We have seen councillors abusing their influence to seize or cheaply buy prime properties in Bulawayo to build houses which they in turn sell for huge profits.

In Harare, Gweru and Kwekwe they are taking land set aside for community development, subdividing it into residential stands which they sell for profit. Many councillors are flouting the law by buying more stands than allowed, in some cases buying the stands cheaply for their girlfriends and infant children who legally cannot register on council waiting lists to be able to buy land.

Councillors cannot do all these corrupt deals alone. Council officials have to facilitate and council officials cannot facilitate without getting something in return. The result is that councillors and senior council officials are involved in a shameful rush to gobble up council land and other properties.

We had thought that the land grab was for personal benefit but revelations by the Minister of Local Government and Public Works, July Moyo indicate that the plot is deeper. MDC-Alliance is abusing its hold on urban councils to orchestrate illegal sales of land to raise money to fund party activities.

Unfortunately for them, fortunately for their electors, the Government is watching and coming hard on the corrupt councillors and council officials who are facilitating and participating in the scams.

As we report elsewhere on these pages today, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) is finalising dockets that could lead to arrest of senior officials at the Bulawayo City Council over alleged graft.

“In all the urban councils across the country, we have serious land scam issues and I have sent teams all over for further investigations and bring to book those found on the wrong side of the law,” Minister Moyo said.

“You know, in some of these urban councils, councillors and staff and I emphasise, councillors and staff, end up taking land, which was open land and they start having stands and if they have the stands, the allocation system becomes skewed towards themselves, family and their party. We think some of the land scams was for fundraising for their political party rather than doing correct things for the benefit of the residents.”

He said in terms of the law, it is illegal for urban councils to change land use without his ministry’s approval yet in Harare some 20 open spaces have been turned into housing or commercial stands without following laid down procedures.

MDC, especially the faction led by Mr Nelson Chamisa makes so much noise, pretending to be clean, presenting themselves as a party of excellence and the best thing to ever happen to local politics. Yet they aren’t.

They are poor and dangerously hungry, only waiting for a chance to grab and eat. In fact, that is what they are doing.

We can imagine, if they were ever to run the country the sort of asset-grabbing and impunity they would visit on us! The good thing, however, is that we have a Government that is committed to stamping out graft and is actually doing that. A number of senior Government officials, ministers and Zanu-PF officials have been arrested, brought before the courts and jailed for corruption. President Mnangagwa has fired at least two ministers on corruption allegations since November 2017.

We expect the corrupt to be brought to book in Bulawayo and Gweru where Zacc has been camped in recent weeks, and arrests elsewhere where opposition councillors are also stealing. They must be accounted for also so that we rid the country of this debilitating cancer called corruption wherever it exists.