Chronicle Editor
Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
A Tsholotsho Rural District Council meeting meant to deliberate claims by its chief executive officer Themba Moyo that council had resolved to take over construction of the Tsholotsho Stadium was aborted on Tuesday morning after he failed to turn up.
All councillors had turned up but Tsholotsho RDC finance committee chairperson Patrick Ngwenya told them that they couldn’t hold a meeting in the absence of the CEO.
Councillors claimed they last had a full council meeting in July 2017.
Ward 12 councillor, Melusi Ndebele, under whose ward the stadium site is, confirmed that the meeting was aborted.
“It wasn’t a full council meeting as such, but a meeting called by councillors after realising that there has not been any meeting since July 2017. We failed to hold a full council meeting in September and in December and we are now in 2018,” said Ndebele.
“Councillors made a resolution to meet today (Tuesday) and caucus because we are seeing a lot of things being done by council staff without involvement of councillors. We read that construction of Tsholotsho Stadium was supposed to start two Fridays ago, but we never made a resolution as council to take over construction of this stadium following an order by the Government that we stop constructing in 2015,” he said.
Zanu-PF Tsholotsho district youth chairperson Robert Rashirayi said they had given the RDC an ultimatum to start construction work at the stadium site tomorrow or else they would shut down the council offices.
He said the youths felt cheated by council staff and they believe money meant for construction work was misappropriated following an order to stop all work, as the project had been taken over by central government in 2015.
“We now want to shut down the rural district offices because of the way things are happening. We have been lied to for far too long by the CEO, who was quoted in the media saying construction will resume two weeks ago, but up to now nothing has happened,” said Rashirayi.
“So we have taken a resolution as the youths that if by Friday there is nothing being done, we will take action and that means shutting down the RDC offices until the Zimbabwe Anti Corruption Commission or central government comes here to explain to us what exactly is happening. It’s clear that there is corruption, but nobody seems to be concerned and as youths, we are saying enough is enough,” he said.
Asked for his reaction to the youths’ threats to shut down council offices Ndebele said: “The youths have not come to me officially,” Ndebele said.
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