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Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
The calibre of councillors in MDC-T dominated Harare City Council leaves a lot to be desired and has seen them fail to carry out their duties to expectations.
MDC-T has 38 councillors from the 46 Wards in Harare with the remainder being held by Zanu-PF.
Director of the Harare Residents Trust, Mr Precious Shumba, said this when he appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Local Government, Rural and Urban Development last Wednesday.
“We have engaged the Ministry of Local Government. They also are concerned with the information they are hearing from Town House but the challenge they have raised is that most of the councillors do not understand the Urban Councils Act, do not understand their responsibilities and that creates a situation where the Town Clerk (Dr Tendai Mahachi) and officials are left to be hand-holding councillors to be telling them how they must do their work so that is the gap in terms of the roles of councillors,” Mr Shumba said.
Former Harare mayor Mr Muchadeyi Masunda raised similar concerns during the tenure of the inclusive Government saying most councillors were ignorant of their roles.
Mr Shumba said there was need to make the Urban Council’s Act conform to requirements of the new Constitution saying under the current dispensation, the Town Clerk had unfettered executive powers.
He said residents believed Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Dr Ignatius Chombo had protected Dr Mahachi from scrutiny because of the provisions of the Urban Council’s Act.
“We now need an overhaul of the Urban Council’s Act to reflect the aspirations of the citizens,” he said.
“The major hindering factor is the Urban Council Act . . . it gives executive authority to the Town Clerk in the running of local authorities. The City of Harare is run by the Town Clerk. He wields so much power that the mayor is only ceremonial.”
Minister Chombo reinstated Dr Mahachi after he was suspended by Harare mayor Clr Bernard Manyenyeni for refusing to hand over the payroll for the city’s executives.
He has also defended council management for buying luxury cars using part of the money from the $144 million Chinese loan meant to rehabilitate water and sewer works.
Meanwhile, the residents called on Parliament to probe Dr Mahachi’s actual age after he allegedly altered his birthday to circumvent the city’s retirement age.
The residents allege that Dr Mahachi’s details in the voters’ roll indicate that he was born on November, 15, 1950 while those at council show his birthday as November, 15, 1956.
Online Reporter