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Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Harare City Council Acting Town Clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango is tipped to be the city’s new Town Clerk after emerging tops in the interviews carried out on Thursday. Former Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (zimra) finance director Mr Robert Mangwiro is also among those shortlisted as well as an unnamed University of Zimbabwe lecturer.

Sources close to the process said Eng Chisango excelled in the interviews because he had institutional memory of the organisation and local government experience, which is required for the post.

The Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing last year made it clear that it wants someone with local government experience to be town clerk.

Council is now set to forward the three successful candidates’ names to the Local Government Board for approval.
Acting Mayor Councillor Enock Mupamawonde confirmed that the city had carried out interviews, but could not disclose more details.

“Yes, we carried out interviews, but we are still waiting for other procedures we will let you know of the candidates after we exhaust the process,” he said.

The city has failed to fill the position over 30 months owing to various reasons.
The latest attempt has seen a consultant going through over 127 applications, with only 11 candidates being shortlisted for the position.

The post fell vacant in 2014, after Dr Tendai Mahachi’s retirement.
Two previous attempts to fill the post were inconclusive as Government and the Local Government Board blocked the appointments citing procedural and other irregularities.

In the previous attempt council and Local Government Board clashed over the board’s intention to interview candidates who were not shortlisted for the post after Harare trimmed down successful applicants to nine, of whom three were shortlisted for the position of Harare City Council town clerk.

According to Section 135 of the Urban Councils Act 135, the Local Government Board shall interview every person whose name has been submitted to it by a council and may approve a person recommended by the council concerned or refuse to approve any person recommended by the council concerned.

“(2) Where the Local Government Board refuses to approve a person recommended by a council, it shall give its reasons therefore in writing to such council,” the section reads in part.

The board is required to notify the council of its refusal to approve a person for appointment.
If the city fails to recommend any other person who meets the approval of the board, it shall submit a report to the minister, setting out the full details of the matter for his consideration.

MDC-T politician Dr Tapiwa Mashakada, who came up tops in the recent interviews, was dismissed as a suitable candidate by Local Government Board, which said his curriculum vitae did not offer a concrete history in an appropriate executive management position, hence his experience was nowhere near what was required for a town clerk of the capital city.