Online Reporter
WHAT we are hearing every day at the Commission of Inquiry into the affairs of the City of Harare is very disturbing.
It appears that there is always a bombshell that will explode every time there is a hearing.
On Tuesday, Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume revealed that the top executives at the City Council are taking home a staggering US$6 million a year and they also splashed a cool US$1 million on their vehicles.
He said the Town Clerk is earning as much as US$27 000 per month, which even gets to US$30 000 a month when perks are factored in, while the lowest ranked director is pocketing US$15 000 a month.
Collectively, he said, the salary bill for the top executives was around US$500 000 a month.
This translates to US$6 million a year.
The fat pay cheques don’t tally with the poor service delivery in the capital.
It also appears, from Mafume’s submission before the Commission of Inquiry into the affairs of the City of Harare, that the huge salaries are a closely guarded secret.
He said the only time he viewed the salaries, he said, was when the Acting Human Resources Manager allowed him to go through the salary sheet following an order from the Town Clerk.
He was grilled as to why the City Council was failing to repair roads in the capital when it could afford to pay its executives such fat salaries.
He said what they were getting from ZINARA was not enough for them to keep repairing and maintaining the roads to the expectations of the city’s residents and visitors.
We feel that Mafume did not answer the question here.
The question was that if the Council can afford to pay its top executives such outrageous salaries, why then was it failing to repair the city’s roads.
How does the city afford to pay its executive fat pay cheques while it can’t afford to repair the roads and collect rubbish in the streets and in the neighbourhoods?
The answer to that is that we have a city leadership which is more concerned with what comes into their pockets than the service they deliver to the residents.
All that matters to them are the large amounts of money which go into their bank accounts as salaries and related perks, at the end of each month, instead of what they are doing to ensure they create a city which is a good place to live in for its residents.
That probably explains why we always have top City Councils being dragged to the courts of law facing various accusations of corruption.
It’s a very sad scenario.
One gets the feeling that the smaller cities are being managed better than Harare.
The capital should lead the way because it is the biggest city in the country.
It should set a template for the other cities to follow.
That template should not be about paying each other US$6 million in salaries every year.
