Mayor, councillors clash over stands

MUTARE mayor - Councillor Tatenda Nhamarare - has ordered the Town Clerk, Mr Joshua Maligwa, to immediately present a report that details all the stands that were allocated to sitting councillors at the Civic Centre amid reports that some city fathers corruptly obtained the pieces of land.

Clr Nhamarare raised the motion on Tuesday following an outcry by fellow councillors who accused him of forcing management to allocate himself a residential stand that was allegedly set aside for a church building.

In an interview on Wednesday, the Mayor said his hands were clean and had nothing to hide.

He said the councillors who were pointing fingers at him had skeletons in their closets and the local authority must move with speed and make good use of auditors who are currently stationed at the Civic Centre to look into the stands issue and resolve it.

Instead of only looking into how he acquired his residential stand, the Mayor said, the auditors must check all the stands that were bought by the other sitting councillors and find out if due process was followed.

"Some people are throwing stones forgetting that they are living in glass houses," he said.

In his motion notice that was filed on Tuesday, Clr Nhamarare said the Town Clerk must present a report on stands that were sold to councillors.

"I would like the Town Clerk to present a report to council on all stands allocated to councillors. The Town Clerk should make available all the stands allocated to councillors as per the November 2016 ministerial circular and also infill stands allocated to councillors outside the requirements of the ministerial circular and check whether procedures were followed when the stands were allocated to the councillors for example tender process on allocation of commercial stands."

He said this should be done in order to set the record straight.

"The reason why I want this exercise to be conducted is that I want to clear my name on whether I am involved in any dubious land sales. So I have called upon the Town Clerk to bring out the list of all stands that had been allocated to councillors because there is too much speculation that some councillors have already parcelled out their stands to buyers in the city. We want to know whether they followed all the procedures needed. We also want to see whether everything that is required when there is a swop or sale of a stand was followed. Was Zimra involved in the sale of the stands with regard to cessations?

"At the end of the day we want the residents of Mutare to see whether their councillors were adhering to principles of good governance. As the Mayor, I want my name cleared and that is the reason why all the paper work concerning the stand sales must be made public and auditors given time to do their work. I believe that if details surrounding all the stands that were allocated to the councillors are made public we will bring sanity at the Civic Centre. Some of us are sitting on skeletons yet we make the most noise," he said.

Clr Nhamarare's motion is in line with a request that was made by the United Mutare Residents and Ratepayers Trust on March 6 in which the organisation wrote to the Town Clerk asking for information on stands that were sold to the councillors.

"We hereby earnestly request you to provide the number of stands allocated to sitting councillors, the size and location of the stands and the value of the stands and status of payment. We have been receiving complaints from our stakeholders and this letter serves as a request for you to respond to the above stated issues. As a request we give you seven days to respond."