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The hard evidence coming out of the hearings by the Commission of Inquiry into the governance of Harare City Council is even worse than was suspected when President Mnangagwa appointed the commissioners under retired judge Justice Maphios Cheda, with the commission now trusted by many who are prepared to tell all.
We had already heard last month about the 349 housing co-operatives suddenly regularised last year before the elections.
These so-called co-operatives were largely the fronts for the land barons that were illegally carving up open space and selling undeveloped stands, often with the connivance of city councillors and municipal officials.
In the latest revelations, this time by a council committee chairperson, we now learned, or at least had confirmed, that the instruction for this regularisation that so benefited those who were organising the illegal sales came directly from then CCC leader Nelson Chamisa.
Admittedly, the committee chairperson did not volunteer the information until the commission played an audio recording of him passing on details of the meeting between Mr Chamisa and four senior councillors, but the whole mess is now in the public domain.
Perhaps most important is the sort of trust the commission is generating.
Someone with that audio recording felt that it should go to the commission, and it does not really matter if this is the deceitful falling out with one another or someone gaining a conscience, the fact is the person who passed it on thought the commission would make proper use of the information.
While a commission of inquiry set up by the President can basically ask anyone any question it wishes, it still needs information, so its questioning can be pointed and uncover as much as possible.
Some of this can come through examination of documents or follow-ups on other questions, but some need people who know to volunteer the information instead of keeping it secret.
It seems that the desire to clean up the city council even includes some of those who have been forced to acquiesce in dubious or even illegal dealings and that does give a basis for whatever follow-ons arise after the commission has made its report. Obviously that cannot be left to gather dust and action will be needed.
The land corruption, from the land barons and their co-operative fronts onwards to the officials and councillors who are now being tracked down, tried and jailed, was among the most severe dishonesty seen in Zimbabwe.
President Mnangagwa’s policy of trying to regularise as much as possible through title deeds was designed to ensure that those who were, in effect, cheated by being sold undeveloped land would be able to move on, raise the money needed by having the security of title deeds, and then finance the services they needed to convert their areas into real suburbs.
In other words, he wanted to help the victims.
Regularising the co-operatives appears to be trying to protect the victimisers.
And the President has made it clear that he was drawing a line, helping those who had already been cheated and from then onwards new buyers should understand that regularisation was not going to happen to new encroachments.
Other scams have been unearthed in the evidence, including a US$1,1 million payment for water treatment technology by a South African company that was never delivered.
Clearly questions over why the payment was made in advance, and why no legal action has been initiated, will be asked along with investigation by the commission or law enforcement agencies over who might have benefited in the council or Zimbabwe from this deal.
Another problem that has been coming to light yet again is the willingness of the opposition block of councillors who run the council to look at political connections rather than qualifications and experience for councillors and to fill essential council committee posts.
Two previous mayors, both from the opposition but both having professional qualifications, brought up this problem.
The theory behind Zimbabwean local government is that councillors, all the way up to mayors and council chairpersons, are part-timers who stand for election to give back to their communities and try and ensure that the myriad of local services are done properly.
Generally until fairly recently most in Harare, the capital city, were professional people or people owning or running large businesses or people with at least wide experience in local government.
This made it relatively easy to have not only a serious person of standing as the mayor, but also knowledgeable and qualified councillors chairing the committees that do most of the work.
Finding out that the head of the audit committee has zero accounting qualifications or even wide experience of reading business accounts seems to show that the problems of the last 24 years are still there, political malleability rather than competence being the test for candidate nomination.
It is all very well saying that the officials are suitably qualified, and that the top rank is likely to have excellent professional qualifications, but councillors have an oversight role.
One major problem we have seen, especially with Harare, is that dishonest senior officials are almost the norm.
Some are in jail, some are facing trial.
So councillors need to be able to at least understand what is going on and be able to keep a close watch on what officials are doing and be able to assess their advice.
And even when officials are competent and honest, councillors are there to try and match recommendations to what residents want, and so need to be able to ask officials the right questions and seek proposals that match the desires of the residents.
The commission is still sitting and gathering information, but already the opening of the gates is giving us a lot to think about and in the end there will be that problem of how to reform a council that appears to work for everyone except the people who elected it.
Online Reporter