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Yeukai Karengezeka–Court Correspondent
SUSPENDED Chitungwiza Municipality housing director, Hazel Sithole, was back in court yesterday on a fresh charge of illegally allocating land for construction of a service station without following due process.
Sithole appeared before Harare magistrate Mrs Marehwanazvo Gofa charged with criminal abuse of office.
She was granted US$300 bail and returns to court on July 18.
The complainant is Mr Japson Nemuseso, who is the acting town clerk for Chitungwiza Municipality.
Her duties include among others, performing competitive bidding processes with minimum offers determined by council, allocating stands and issuing offer letters. Prosecutor Mr Lancelot Mutsokoti alleged that sometime in July 2018, Chitungwiza Municipality held its 449th ordinary meeting and resolved among other things that an application by Chesane Jaidi for a piece of land located at Corner Tilco and Chitungwiza Road to construct a service station, be considered by council after going through the required processes in accordance with Chitungwiza Council Housing Policy.
The then Acting Chamber Secretary Mary Mukonyora extracted the resolutions and came up with the implementation of resolution schedule, addressed to the Town Clerk and all head of departments including Sithole, instructing them to implement the resolutions of the 449th Ordinary Council meeting. The court heard that on 23 August 2018, the Acting Director of Works proffered a memorandum to Sithole after they had done an assessment of stand number 20727 Zengeza 4 recommending that the stand be allocated in line with the housing policy.
Thereafter, Sithole made a false representation on an offer letter addressed to Jaidi that Chitungwiza Municipality at its 449th Ordinary meeting held on 19 July 2018 resolved that Jaidi be allocated a service station knowing very well that Council had resolved that the allocation be done in compliance with the laid down housing policy procedures.
Sithole failed to adhere to Clause 13 of Chitungwiza Council Housing policy which stipulates that in allocating commercial stands, she was supposed to seek competitive bidding with a minimum offer determined by Council. It also involves the submission of the adjudication outcome to the Finance Committee for information and awarding, following existing procurement procedures followed by a council resolution.
Based on the misrepresentation by Sithole on the offer letter to the effect that the allocation of the commercial stand was a result of a Council resolution, Jaidi proceeded to make the initial payments including land sales and signing of the lease agreement.
This was contrary to the Council resolution which had emphasised that Sithole was supposed to follow due process before allocation takes place.
By her actions, Sithole acted contrary and inconsistent with her duties with the intention of extending favour to Jaidi.
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