City clamps down on errant traffic officers Cllr Herbert Gomba

Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Harare City Council traffic revenue has gone up from $800 to $22 000 a day after the city moved a sizeable number of traffic officers who were fingered in alleged corrupt activities.

The officers were exposed after an investigation and following reports from the trafficking public.

It is alleged that the officers would clamp vehicles without writing a ticket first in order to facilitate their corruption.

This gave them room for negotiations with the clamped vehicle owners who would unofficially pay the officers.

The fraudulent behaviour was further exposed when the new council forced the officers to work with councils’ parking unit — City Parking.

Council managers realised that the officers were cashing in $800 instead of the $35 000 expected target per day.

It is alleged that the officers had established shady relationships with property owners in Harare.

Council now plans to enforce the same changes in the city markets division, environmental health and advertising where millions are being lost.

Sources at Town House alleged that some employees were conniving with clients and not taking action against those who were not paying.

Councillors have criticized such employees saying they are inhibiting the transformational agenda in council, which is meant to achieve a World Class City Status by the year 2025.

Harare Mayor Cllr Herbert Gomba confirmed the development, saying the city was moving on with its transformational agenda and bad apples would be dealt  with.

“We are embarking on a transformational agenda and council will not hesitate to deal with bad apples,” he said.

Recently, Town Clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango said the city was conducting a job evaluation exercise to ensure that every job in council met the requisites of its title, as a step towards attaining Vision 2025.

“After the job evaluation, we will be doing a skills audit where we will look at the qualifications and the attitude of employees,” he said. “In the next 18 months, we should have some results to say what kind of employees do we have? Are they the employees that can actually drive the desired goal?”

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