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Dorcas Jiri Herald Reporter
Harare City Council officials are conniving with land barons to acquire municipal land illegally, it has emerged. In minutes of a full council meeting held early in October, the city expressed concern over widespread reports of corruption in some of the city’s departments. “Concern was further raised that land barons were working in cahoots with certain council officials to identify and illegally invade council land.

“A lot of corruption was alleged to be taking place both in the corporate services and housing departments and department of works,” read part of the minutes.
Council also expressed serious concern over the tendency to allocate critical duties such as land allocation to students on attachment.

“Council further expressed concern on the use of students on attachment in the corporate services and housing department to perform critical duties in relation to allocation of land to co-operatives and reiterated that council officials should do the work instead,” read the minutes.

According to the minutes, the city fathers recommended the setting up of proper structures in the housing department to guarantee effective service delivery.
Harare city is losing thousands of dollars due to fraudulent activities by its workers in various departments.

Earlier this year, Auditor-General Ms Mildred Chiri unearthed serious irregularities in the local authorities’ operations that include corrupt allocation of stands and payment of ghost workers amongst others.