MDC-T councillors clash over stands

COUNCILLORS and council management have clashed over an agreement that would see the local authority working together with property developers in various housing projects aimed at easing the city's housing woes. Councillors are reportedly accusing management of dragging their feet in finalising the deals that were endorsed by councillors more than a year back.

The councillors have since ordered an audit to establish management's delay in implementing council resolutions and push council into finally going ahead with the stands deal. In the said deals, the local authority will work with various land developers to develop stands in the city which will then be sold on a pre-sale basis.

Management have on the other hand claimed that they could not effect the resolutions because of a Government directive regarding the issue of unsolicited bids which was passed in April this year, a year after the local authority passed the resolution to give these stands to the property developers.

In the circular which was sent to the local authority by the Local Government Ministry's permanent secretary, Engineer George Mlilo, the ministry will now not be able to facilitate the regularisation of deals struck by local authorities that are outside the formal tender process.

"The State Procurement Board has stated that all major projects must be awarded through a properly advertised and adjudicated tender procedure, regardless of which company "discovers" the project or opportunity.

"The best way forward in this matter is for each council to have available a prospectus of all development, service delivery, partnership opportunities and if an interest is shown in any area, the council would then advertise the opportunity which would be open to every bidder," reads part of the circular.

According to the latest council report councillors had to defer the discussion of the matter ordering an immediate investigation by the audit section on why management was delaying in implementing council resolution aimed at developing the city.

"It will be recalled that there are council resolutions which relate to allocation of land to developers for residential development which are yet to be implemented, namely; council resolution of where it was resolved that management engages with three companies namely Treasure Consultants, TCI International and Hawkflight Enterprises towards the proposed partnership with council in servicing high density residential stands.

"The Town Lands and Planning Committee on 21 June considered the abovementioned matter and resolved that discussion be deferred pending investigations and a report by the audit section on why there had been delays by management in concluding these deals/partnerships, resulting in them being caught up in the Ministerial circular," reads part of the report.

During the debate councillors questioned the delays in implementing resolutions, with some councillors alleging possible sabotage on the part of council management.

"Clr Mlandu Ncube was concerned about the late implementation of resolutions. One of the private companies (Hawkflight) had its offices in town and could be easily accessed. He made reference to delays of implementing a resolution relating to a piece of land in Ward 13 which was tendered without regard to a previous resolution.

"He urged Heads of Department to ensure that staff was properly supervised. A resolution was passed by council regarding a piece of land in Ward 13 up to now the resolution had not yet been implemented. An item was later submitted for tendering the same piece of land," reads part of the council report.
Councillors noted that it was unacceptable that a resolution that was sealed in March last year was still being tossed around while residents continued to face housing problems in the city. A councillor who spoke on condition of anonymity said they now suspected that council management were deliberately sabotaging the project in an ttempt to expose councillors to the parent ministry.

"They want it to seem like councillors are failing to provide accommodation to residents. They want to seem as angels to ministry when in actual fact they are the ones dragging their feet in the implementation of council resolutions.

"However, this time around we want to beat them at their own game because for once we know that the law does not operate in retrospect besides it is known that all these are development projects and Minister (Saviour) Kasukuwere has continually mentioned the importance of housing for citizens," said the councillor.

Speaking during a media briefing, last week, the local authority's Acting Town Clerk, Mrs Sikhangele Zhou said the problem with the ministerial circular was that there was no effective date.

"We still have to engage the ministry regarding the circular as it is silent on when it should be effected from so we will have to seek ministerial guidance," said Mrs Zhou.

She also confirmed that according to their figures the city's housing waiting list had since ballooned to 110 000.
"According to our figures we have a housing backlog of 110 000 houses. We have a total of 157 000 households in the city. I should however, point out that the Zimstat let us down when they released the national census results which stated that Bulawayo's population was said to stand at 653 337.

"This really affects our planning because if we did not use our own figures, that is in terms of households which we physically counted it might cause problems because we still have to calculate water sources and other key services using these figures," she said.