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Patrick Chitumba, Midlands Bureau Chief
GWERU City Council will institute an audit following the sacking of Mayor, Councillor Hamutendi Kombayi, Town Clerk Ms Elizabeth Gwatipedza has said.
Ms Gwatipedza told The Chronicle that the audit will among other things look into land sales. She said during Kombayi’s tenure, council lost substantial amounts of money in potential revenue from the sale of stands, plan approvals and permits.
Ms Gwatipedza said at the moment they were in the dark on the number of houses or commercial properties under the local authority.
She, however, could not say how much council could have lost but said the amount could run into several thousands of dollars.
“The systems had collapsed and so you will get answers after a land audit,” she said.
The Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Cde Saviour Kasukuwere in his progress report for Gweru presented in the city two weeks ago, said open spaces were converted into residential stands and council got nothing.
“One of the worst breakdowns of systems in the city of Gweru was in the area of development control and spatial planning. City officials had a culture of creating stands willy nilly to the extent that most of the open spaces were converted into residential stands and some stands encroached into the road ways.
Normal controls were non-existent. The town planning laws were violated as the acting director of engineering services was left to run the show unsupervised giving him the opportunity to pocket monies paid for plans and subdivisions he approved,” said the Minister.
“Today internal control systems are now in place and the backlog on plan approvals has since been cleared. There was chaos in the town planning section and as such council was deprived of significant income from approval of plans and permits for subdivisions, money that should have been spent on council projects.”
— @pchitumba1
Online Reporter