EDITORIAL COMMENT: Stop rot at Gweru City Council Gweru Council workers stage a protest in this file photo
Gweru Council workers stage a protest in this file photo

Gweru Council workers stage a protest in this file photo

Every right-thinking person will find the state of affairs at Gweru City Council ridiculous and extremely worrying. It is complete system failure in the so-called City of Progress, a record unseen anywhere in the civilised world, possibly only seen in the backwaters of Somalia or in Boko Haram territory where ragtag militias rule by force and confusion.

In Gweru, workers styling themselves most appropriately, as Boko Haram, have overthrown the established systems of local governance, arrogating to themselves duties that are not theirs. Council is not doing anything about it, only making sheepish pleas for workers to behave.

It all started late April in the run-up to the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, when workers hijacked a vehicle that senior workers and councillors were supposed to travel on to the show in Bulawayo.

The workers said their bosses were going to pay themselves big allowances attending the ZITF, so to prevent that from happening they snatched the vehicle. Shortly after that, they started disconnecting water supplies from defaulting clients around the city. Now, they are collecting all revenue due to council and deciding how it is spent and who is paid, including salaries! They are channelling 90 percent of all revenue collected to their own salaries as junior workers, withholding those for middle managers and above.

We quoted Gweru Ward 16 councillor, Tawanda Magidi yesterday saying “Boko Haram,” like the one that has taken over northern Nigeria, abducting mainly girls with the Nigerian government failing to contain them, must be contained. He said the cabal running the City of Progress has not paid middle managers their salaries in the city for six months.

“We’re fed up with this workers’ committee known as ‘Boko Haram’ which is making it difficult for directors to do their work properly,” he said. “Everything done by management, the workers’ committee wants to be involved and we must bring an end to this.”

Mayor, Hamutendi Kombayi grossly understated the lawlessness that has rendered him and his council a laughing stock when he accused the workers’ committee of merely interfering in the running of council. In actual fact it has taken over.

“The town clerk (Daniel Matawu) cannot even make a decision because he’s now afraid of the workers’ committee,” said Kombayi.

The lawlessness is shameful and cannot be allowed to continue.

We implore Kombayi, his council and senior managers to actively take measures to bring the situation under control and stop complaining. They are elected to run that council. Allowing undesignated personnel to collect revenue, decide how it is used and actually proceed to allocating it must be criminal.

There are always ringleaders in such occurrences and council obviously knows them. Kombayi needs to reach out to them more seriously and make it clear that what they are doing is illegal.

The workers know this and we are optimistic that if council discusses this with them, they will understand and hand over authority back to the legitimate chain of command. We will not propose tougher action at this stage like firing the ringleaders as it can worsen the crisis. Council should give negotiations a chance.

Having said this, we know that the record of the MDC-T-dominated council in running that local authority is poor. It reeks of corruption with some councillors collecting rentals from council properties and pocketing it, selling council resources for their personal benefit and Kombayi most shockingly constituting the implicated councillors into a probe team to investigate allegations against themselves. Kombayi, whose company was recently reported as owing the local authority up to $300,000, and a senior employee, bought the bulk of the 400 head of cattle on offer at a sham council auction a few weeks ago.

Given this, one might justify workers’ action in overthrowing what they see as a corrupt council who think about themselves only, not service delivery. We are tempted to think that workers are only taking after their bosses.

We are happy that the government recently constituted a team to investigate alleged corruption at council. Cde Ignatius Chombo set it up weeks before he was moved from the Ministry of Local Government to Home Affairs.

The probe team is investigating 32 cases of alleged corruption involving councillors and council management. Among other cases, the team will seek to establish how council has been operating 18 bank accounts, all of which are in overdraft and the suspect cattle sale.

In a letter announcing the investigation, George Mlilo, the permanent secretary of local government said the team would also look into allegations that some council employees are overpaid with the accounts department insisting that senior staff “withdraw the excess in cash and the money disappears.”

We urge the team to get to the heart of the rot in Gweru that has exploded into the worker lawlessness we are witnessing there.

 

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