Gokwe town council in messy fight

17 Jan, 2016 - 00:01 0 Views
Gokwe town council in messy fight Mr Mavela taking his three bales to the Gokwe Town Centre collection point

The Sunday Mail

Garikai Mazara
A storm is brewing in Gokwe where the residents are up in arms against the town council, led by town secretary Melania Mandeya, over a raft of allegations, some which have remained unresolved for almost five years now.
Residents are saying the council is not being prudent with its management systems such that crimes against council which can be settled through the courts are being swept under the carpet.
In 2011, for instance, Gokwe Town Council paid $23 000 for the purchase of a Nissan NP300 vehicle which was never delivered. Sources within the council said the purchase transaction, which was paid in two cash instalments of $10 000 and $13 525, was against the best practices in handling public funds, and instead the transaction should have been done through bank payments.
As it turned out, the supplier of the vehicle, Big Valley, was a non-existent brief case company.
In September last year, a Foton vehicle which was allocated to the finance director, disappeared under yet-to-be-explained circumstances. According to sources within council, neither a police report nor a report to council was made as to the whereabouts of the vehicle. There is speculation, however, that the vehicle was involved in a road traffic accident.
With council workers having not been paid their salaries since September last year, the council went onto acquire a fire tender for $22 000, which councillors argue was not a priority for the ailing town council since they had just refurbished the one they had.
Over and above the acquisition of the fire tender, the council went ahead and bought a Mazda BT50 for $68 000. However, on the Willowvale Mazda Motor Industries website, their flagship vehicle, the Mazda CX9 is selling for $59 990.
The council is alleged to be in the habit of firing workers willy-nilly, especially those who are accused of being too eagle-eyed. For instance, the internal auditor, was summarily dismissed without following due procedure because he questioned a number of payments that did not comply with laid-down procedures.
Another casualty was the accountant, who had a number of allegations raised against him. The arbitrary job dismissals has seen Gokwe’s legal bill floating around $60 000 per year, money which the residents argue could be better spent on service delivery. A number of these labour issues remain unresolved and are before the courts.
The labour issue of Mafa and Others vs Gokwe Town Council, in which the town council had to withdraw the case from the Supreme Court, is seen as another example of how politics is being used to manipulate the running of the council.
Emmanuel Mafa, who is the council vice chairperson, was once a council employee and resigned to seek greener pastures elsewhere. When his move to the greener pastures hit a brickwall, he applied back to council and his application was turned down. He then took council to court for unfair dismissal when he, in fact, he had resigned.
In the 2013 harmonised elections, Mafa contested as a councillor and won. The residents argue that using his new position as vice chair in the council, Mafa persuaded council to withdraw the case from the courts and have an out-of-court settlement.
After the firing of the internal auditor, Gokwe Town Council has now gone for over six months without an audit committee, which is against provisions of the Urban Councils Act. As if that was not enough, the town’s accountant was also fired.
The absence of an audit committee has seen rampant abuse of council finances and financial malpractices, such that the 2013 audit report was adopted yet it had a shortfall of $219 000.
The flagrant abuse of finances at the council has seen top management hardly in the office but on “numerous and unending” workshop and training sojourns, all these designed such that the travel and subsistence allowances which gobble in excess of $100 000 per year, are paid to top council officers.
Whereas the residents are not happy with the manner with which their council is being run, their bone of contention seem to stem from the appointment of Mandeya as town secretary in 2014, which they argue was not procedural.
After interviews were done, three names were recommended to the Local Government Board of which Mandeya’s name was not on the top three. The winning candidate, Loud Ramakgapola, was frustrated out of town — he lasted a mere four months and he asked to be re-assigned — and instead of having fresh interviews, Mandeya was seconded to take over from Ramakgapola. This in spite of the fact that she was not even in the top three candidates.
After being appointed, against protocol, Mandeya is said to have arrived in Gokwe and refused the house that was used by the previous town secretary. Besides staying in Gokwe Hotel for three months, as council looked for a house that suited her taste, the council spent money paying rentals for a house that was not being occupied. They had a long lease with the owner of the house.
Later when a house that suited her tastes was found, council was paying rentals for two properties until it was resolved that the other house be sub-let to offset its costs.
When contacted for comment on these issues, Mrs Mandeya, who was not in office and said she would only be back in Gokwe after a week, said she had no time for negative people. “No one is paying any attention to the enormous effort that I am doing in turning Gokwe from a rural background into a town status and all these people see are the bad things. I don’t have time for them. I will soldier on with the few that share my vision.”
The district administrator for Gokwe, Edwin Mashindi, singing from the same book, lauded Mandeya for her work and said what is being said is the work of her detractors, especially those who never wanted her in Gokwe in the first place.

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