Harare Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni say he did not suspend Town Clerk

Harare Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni has said he had asked the town clerk Tendai Mahachi to go on leave but never said he was being suspended as it has been put.

He said last week he notified full council of his decision to ask Town Clerk Mahachi to proceed on leave to allow council to pursue certain strategic and operational matters in his absence.

"I quite deliberately, did not invoke the provisions of Sect. 139 of the Urban Councils Act because the provisions and the matters at hand do not form the basis of the action I communicated to council," he said.

"I will remind you that I deliberately did not refer to suspension, the term subsequently employed elsewhere in describing the development. We should all accept that this managed leave arrangement does not prejudice the town clerk at all and no investigationwas proposed or implied."

He said Harare City Council must still enjoy its space in terms of governing the affairs of the city.

"I am aware of the minister's interest in this development and to deal with that interest I will communicate developments to the minister regularly I take direct advice from my Minister the Hon Dr Ignatius Chombo, his advice is largely verbal and I take it sincerely, loyally and in good spirit while raising any objections I may have. This I try and do with both official and personal respect," he said.

"Since last year Council has been managing the exit from council service for those employees who would have attained the ripe age of 60 years."

Manyenyeni said it would appear that the Town Clerk would have been among the candidates for this retirement exercise from last year. The reason he was not included is not a matter of special treatment but largely to do with his proof of age which has not been availed to council since last year leaving us with the assumption that he was under 60 years of age.

"Upon my insistence on the age matter a solution presented itself over 4 months ago when the Town Clerk offered himself for exit proposing 31st December 2015 as his retirement from service of the City," he said.

 "A month later at what was essentially a team-building meeting convened at the ministry a suggestion by the Hon Minister for succession planning was tabled."

Manyenyeni said the Minister proposed that the Mayor and Town Clerk must first agree on the Town Clerk's date of exit.

"I notified the meeting immediately that this had been done - no objections or comments where made by the 15-odd people at the meeting," he said.

"Our attempts to get Dr Mahachi's employment file has not yielded much. The file could not be located in three of the most likely areas, the mayor's office, the office of the human capital director's office or the chamber secretary's office. The Town Clerk then indicated that he had his personal employment file at home."

"I requested him to avail it - this did not happen. Dr Mahachi last week advised that he had, after my request, given his file to someone at Local Government Board."

He said Mahachi surprised the meeting of the deputy mayor, HR Committee chairman and myself last Monday that he does not know the person who he gave the file to. He had the arrogance to pack his papers and simply saying "ndaakuendaini!" before going out of my meeting
"Such behaviour is not acceptable and is not the first time that our Town Clerk has presented a shocking submission. We recall an attempt as recently as 2013 to present his Zimbabwe dollar payslip to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Local Government as proof of his salary," he said.

"Three months later we still do not have the touted succession roadmap in place. A ministerial decision to have the Local Government Board prescribe a succession plan has since been rejected by council, rightly so. This council has the mandate to deal with all managerial succession issues."