Yeukai Karengezeka Herald Correspondent
Chitungwiza Town Clerk Dr George Makunde has urged the new councillors to stick to their mandate as outlined in the Constitution and the Urban Councils Act in order to improve service delivery.
Dr Makunde made the remarks during an interview on the sidelines of the swearing-in ceremony of 25 councillors last week at the municipality head office.
“Every episode in terms of council operations requires that people are forthright and are geared up in terms of fulfilling their obligations and mandate to the community that elected them into power,” he said.
“Chitungwiza has serious problems in terms of water, roads, sewer and every other item that can be classified under service delivery and as such it requires people who can influence development in the town.”
The majority of former councillors were accused of illegally parcelling out council land.
“The problem with Chitungwiza is that the majority of councillors who come into office are coming in not to serve the community, but their personal interests,” said Mr Makunde.
“Specifically, if you are looking at the issues of parcelling out of land, they have been gaining undue advantage over beneficiaries who are supposed to be first in terms of priority.
“They normally misplace that priority and ensure that they grab the opportunity.”
Over the past years, some councillors have been involved in land grabbing, giving it out to their supporters and selling it to desperate home seekers.
Recently, the council was up in arms with some councillors who were parcelling out land without council’s authority while campaigning for the July 30 harmonised elections..
Some of the former councillors were suspended by Government last year on allegations of allocating themselves numerous stands, prejudicing council of millions of dollars.
The councillors were eventually cleared by a commission set up by Government to investigate the matter.
Former mayor Mr Phillip Mutoti was convicted by a Chitungwiza court after he was found guilty of allocating a stand to his three-year-old son.