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Management at the City of Harare is allegedly stonewalling councillors’ efforts to get a full salary schedule showing how much executives earn every month.
There have been claims that the city’s 15 heads of department and 49 managers are gobbling over US$600 000 in salaries and allowances monthly. Some top managers are reportedly earning more than US$12 000, including allowances, while residents continue to complain about poor service delivery.
According to minutes of the last full council meeting in December 2013, the human resources and general purposes committee chaired by Ward 28 councillor Wellington Chikombo was mandated to interrogate the executive payroll.
Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni and Town Clerk Dr Tendai Mahachi are part of the team that should establish how much each top manager is earning and report back to the next full council this month.
Councillors also want the city’s 11 departments, some which have dual leadership, to be streamlined.
The resolution has, however, met stiff resistance from top management. Sources say “only skeleton information without figures is being shown to the human resources committee”.
Mayor Manyenyeni yesterday said: “We are meeting over that issue tomorrow (today) afternoon and that is when I can furnish you with more details.”
Dr Mahachi said the committee was interrogating “several other issues”.
“We were not only asked to look at the executive payroll but several other issues. We are meeting and not yet complete with what we are doing,” he said.
Clr Chikombo said all they wanted was to establish, on behalf of ratepayers, what the city management was earning.
A source said a huge chunk of Harare’s revenue was going towards the salaries of the top management.
“We have more than 10 300 council employees and about 64 managers whose salaries are astronomical and could be gobbling over US$600 00 every month,” said the source.
The source went on: “(Some departments) have two directors each, like the Department of Health, and one wonders what the purpose of the two directors – Prosper Chonzi and Stanley Mungofa – is.
“The department of public safety is now a standalone unit with its own director when it used to fall under the chamber secretary. Some departments should be merged and councillors believe only seven departments are necessary.”
The source said the bungling of the dismissal of city treasurer Mr Misheck Mubvumbi, who was then reinstated, had forced the local authority to create a new department to accommodate Mr Cosmos Zvikaramba.
“Zvikaramba was hired when Mubvumbi was dismissed and the later fought his way back through the courts. His coming back saw the creation of another department which Zvikaramba is now heading.”
Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo has directed that salaries of senior management at local authorities – some which he described as “a scandal” – be made public this month.
He said town clerks must not earn more than US$8 000, including allowances.
A source said the possibility that the team would fail to establish the actual figures earned by management was high.
Minister Chombo has also set up a team to investigate reports that some town clerks and chief executives of cash-strapped local authorities are depositing their rich pickings in offshore accounts to avoid detection.
Online Reporter