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Senior Reporter
Harare City Council has shortlisted 11 candidates to be interviewed for the vacant position of town clerk, with a consultant going through more than 127 applications.

The post fell vacant in 2014 following the retirement of Dr Tendai Mahachi, with council’s two previous attempts to fill the post proving to be inconclusive as Government and the Local Government Board blocked the attempts citing procedural and other irregularities.

In an interview yesterday, Harare Mayor Councillor Bernard Manyenyeni said he got the 11 names from a consultant last Friday.

“Candidates have been shortlisted independent of us. We now have the names and we are now moving to the next level. We asked them to list 10 candidates but they could not separate the last two, so they have given us 11,” he said.

“The last time we asked them for 10 they gave us nine. There is a different crowd. There was a tie on the last two so they could have given us nine, but they gave us 11 out of 127,” he said.

Clr Manyenyeni said people who are making noise in newspapers over the town clerk issue must wait for the truth.

In March, the city resolved to re-advertise the town clerk’s post, after its three shortlisted candidates were rejected by the Local Government Board for various reasons. Clr Manyenyeni argues that the succession issue had been very disruptive as it had taken very deep political dimensions, personal overtones and vindictive treatment of issues since it started.

In 2016, council appointed former banker Mr James Mushore to the post of town clerk, but just a few hours after council announced his appointment Government rescinded the decision because the local authority flouted procedures of appointment as laid out in the Urban Councils Act.

Council then conducted fresh interviews, where top MDC-T official and former Cabinet minister Dr Tapiwa Mashakada came up tops, but the Local Government Board did not approve the three shortlisted candidates.

“I have received communication from the LGB that they are not happy with the three candidates and they have requested fresh interviews for the position. It is back to square one. This was after more than 30 months without a town clerk,” Clr Manyenyeni said at the time.

He said although council had begrudgingly agreed to restart the process it would legally challenge the constitutionality of LGB.