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In an interview with the Sunday News last Friday, Local Government, Rural and Urban Development Minister, Cde Ignatius Chombo, said Government had instituted investigations in all councils that stood accused of corruption and abuse of office resulting in the firing of some of the councillors while in some towns and cities the investigations are still in progress.
Cde Chombo said he was also going to appoint a batch of eight special councillors for Bulawayo.

He further castigated Bulawayo councillors for acting in concert to frustrate the appointment of special councillors, saying despite their actions, the eight councillors, who would have no voting powers, were going to be appointed to give the elected councillors some experience and guidance in local governance.
Minister Chombo said he was going to choose the eight from people that he knew have a wealth of experience in local authority issues.

Turning to corruption and abuse of office by councillors and council officials, he said Government was wielding an axe on all corrupt officials as it moves to restore sanity and purge the rot in local governance.
“Government will not stand aloof while councils go on a corruption rampage. We will do everything in our power to stop all the corruption and abuse of office by the local authorities and promote service delivery. Government will never at any given time allow service delivery to suffer at the expense of the rot that councillors and council officials are entangled in. The ministry will invoke all its powers to deal with such elements as we try to get rid of all the bad apples from among our local authorities.

“The corruption and abuse of office is in most cases, driven by ignorance and arrogance on the part of councillors and some of them have even admitted to that. Our investigations are at different stages and we are firing those who deserve to be fired after exhausting our probe,’’ he said.
He said his team of investigators would descend on Beitbridge on Tuesday to probe allegations of corruption and abuse of office after reports that councillors were unashamedly busy parcelling out stands to their relatives on tribal grounds while there seem to be no hint of accountability in the handling of council funds.

In Victoria Falls, the minister said investigations were being held by the permanent secretary’s office and were ongoing after which a course of action would be determined by the outcome, while in Gweru the ministry was carrying out investigations on allegations of corruption and abuse of office that led to the suspension of the chamber secretary, Mr Richard Masinire.
He said the ministry had finalised investigations into the Chitungwiza corruption issue that led to the sacking of some of the councillors after they were found on the wrong side of stipulations of the Urban Councils Act, while investigations of abuse of council funds were in progress in Chinhoyi.

Minister Chombo added that his office had fired five councillors in Rusape for corruption and had also sacked the illegitimate deputy mayor for Mutare after he was involved in an accident with the mayor’s S-Class car that he took and went for a joyride.
The car was a complete write-off as a result of the accident.

He said the ministry was pursuing councils on the effective implementation of revenue utilisation where councils were ordered to comply with the directive that 70 percent of the revenue should be channelled towards service delivery while 30 percent was to be used for pensions, allowances and wages.
Minister Chombo said it was disturbing that most of the councils were doing the exact opposite as 75 percent of their total revenue went to salaries, allowances and pensions while leaving a paltry 25 percent to service delivery.

“As a result of councils not complying with the Government directive, some chief executive officers are paid US$18 000 per month while council is also paying for a housemaid, a gardener among other benefits. We are saying it is obscene as that amount is shockingly incomparable regionally. Such salaries, we suggest, should be cut by more than half depending on the capacity of the local authority to pay,’’ said Minister Chombo.

He added that the ministry gave a moratorium that all local authorities should not hire as that would further inflate their wage bills and compromise service delivery.
Minister Chombo rebuffed sentiments by Harare Mayor, Mr Muchadeyi Masunda, who openly declared that he would not pay heed to Government orders to reduce the salary bill, saying he has a tendency of wanting to play the hero and later regret his actions.

“Masunda has a tendency of saying what he wants and regret it later. He is fond of playing the hero. The percentage that should be used for salaries, wages and pensions is actually 28 percent but we have relaxed the two percent, we gave them that as a leeway but they have and still are abusing that,’’ he noted.