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WE are appalled that a small town like Gwanda with a municipality struggling to provide basic services to residents can sanction a salary totalling $16,000 to its Town Clerk. We are further outraged just like the ratepayers of that mining town, that the Gwanda council’s top five executives pocketed up to $65,000 per month in salaries and allowances.
Juxtaposed against the local authority’s limited revenue inflows (in 2013 council budgeted $8.8 million income but only received $1.6 million), the senior managers’ perks come across as obscene and not in keeping with the size of the town. We reported yesterday that salaries earned by top management at the Gwanda Municipality were shocking with the Town Clerk Gilbert Mlilo taking home nearly double the salary of his Bulawayo counterpart Middleton Nyoni who earns $9,000 per month.
Cde Abednico Ncube, the Minister of State for Provincial Affairs in Matabeleland South, understandably called for urgent action to deal with the rot. “We’re very worried because the council has problems in paying its workers and water, yet a few individuals award themselves such salaries. We’re not happy as residents especially in relation to water bills,” said Cde Ncube. “We’re very concerned about the state of affairs in the municipality and we don’t know if Minister Ignatius Chombo will be happy about this.”
He said the town’s top management was taking advantage of the fact that councillors were still new in office.
Illustrating the gap in salaries, Gwanda’s general workforce and middle grade managers — who are owed four months’ salaries as management claims there is no money — account for a combined $87,000 per month.
This is clearly an untenable state of affairs and demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt the culture of impunity and greed which characterises most local authorities. Council officials now seem intent on enriching themselves and lining their pockets at the expense of service delivery.
While there are a few exceptions such as the Bulawayo City Council, the likes of Harare are weighed down by massive corruption with the Town Clerk Tendai Mahachi being suspended last month following revelations of his huge salary and allowances.
Mahachi and 18 managers at the capital’s Town House were gobbling close to $500,000 monthly while workers wallowed in poverty. This culture of entitlement and looting appears to have spread across the country. In the case of Gwanda, the situation is made worse by revelations that workers are owed four months in salary arrears as management claims that there is no money.
Gwanda is a town facing a critical shortage of staff with over 30 vacant positions that need to be filled for it to operate smoothly. The council’s treasury department is supposed to have 13 staff members but has only seven, a situation which has seen council lagging behind in the compilation of its financial accounts.
The environmental health department is also faced with a shortage of personnel to collect refuse. In the department of engineering, six staff members are required while the department of security needs four more people. The new suburb of Spitzkop has had no running water for years while the town’s housing backlog continues to balloon.
The town also faces a serious shortage of refuse trucks (there is only one truck servicing the entire town) with litter scattered all over the suburbs. Given the above problems, it is baffling that a local authority that is clearly failing to discharge its mandate to residents due to financial constraints can afford to splurge the little that trickles into its coffers on obscene salaries for its top management.
Surely, that is the height of irresponsibility and dereliction of duty. Their priorities are obviously misplaced and we urge the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Dr Ignatius Chombo, to intervene and slash these outrageous amounts.
Councils like Gwanda should be focusing on growing their towns and managing them well to attract investment and improve the lives of their residents.
Service delivery should never be sacrificed for the comfort of senior employees out to fleece the local authority. The rot should be stopped forthwith.
Online Reporter