Former mayor refuses to be evicted from mayoral mansion

KWEKWE City Council is running out of patience with its former executive mayor, Mr Stanford Bonyongwa, who is resisting efforts to be evicted from the mayoral mansion, more than four years after leaving office, the incumbent mayor, Councillor Shadreck Tobaiwa has said.

In an interview, Clr Tobaiwa said the council resolved to evict Mr Bonyongwa from the mansion long back but he quickly engaged the management team asking for more time.

"We wanted him out of the mansion years back but when we made a resolution to evict him last December, Mr Bonyongwa requested for more time from the implementers. First he was given up to the end of February to vacate the house but now he has requested more time. I hear he wants up to the end of March. We may end up evicting him if he does not move out on his own," he said.

Clr Tobaiwa said the council gave Mr Bonyongwa two houses to choose from and buy one at fifty percent of the market value.

He said he has since chosen the chamber secretary's house but was still to deposit the requisite 25 percent of the agreed value of the property. Clr Tobaiwa said the council could not tamper with Mr Bonyongwa's benefits as it was part of the agreement he had with his former employers, the Ministry of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development.

"Residents and the council are growing increasingly impatient with Mr Bonyongwa. He is still in the house, close to five years after leaving office. He is not mayor anymore but is living in the mayor's office.

"What should people think? We were told by Minister (Ignatius) Chombo (Local Government, Rural and Urban Development) that we should look for an alternative house for Mr Bonyongwa that he would buy at fifty percent of the value and we did that. He chose the house but is failing to pay for it.

"The mansion he is staying in is more expensive. Mr Bonyongwa should move out and move into the house that he is entitled to. We have a lot of respect for him since he is our former mayor. If he is finding it difficult to pay for the other house, he should reengage management but he has to move out of the mansion first," he said.

Mr Bonyongwa dismissed the council's position over the mayoral mansion as "half-baked information".

He said people were not stating the truth regarding the matter.

"It's not an honest submission. It has never been like that. There are people who do not really have the finer details of what transpired but are eager to air their views. Get in touch with the Town Clerk, Mr (Ngwena) Musara or the chamber secretary, these are the people who know this issue well. It now appears like I am the only former executive mayor who got benefits after leaving office. Other former mayors got all their benefits just a few weeks after leaving office but I am still to get mine," said Mr Bonyongwa.

The former mayor could, however, not be drawn into revealing what exactly he agreed with the council as his exit package.

Mr Bonyongwa, like all former Executive Mayors, was entitled to a house and a car as part of his exit package. However, the former mayor of Kwekwe only got the Mercedes Benz that he used to have for official duties minus the mansion prompting a bitter protracted war between the council and its former boss.

The Kwekwe City Council and Mr Bonyongwa have been fighting over the mansion since the abolishment of executive mayor posts in 2008.

Last year the council handed over the matter to its lawyers in a bid to push him out of the mansion but the action did not change anything as Mr Bonyongwa continued to occupy the house up to date.