Emmanuel Chitsika
Masvingo city councilors are up in arms with council management over non-implementation of resolutions that would have been made during council meetings, thereby affecting service delivery.
Councilors accused top council management of gross insubordination saying it would be meaningless for them to waste time discussing and coming up with resolutions that would not see the light of day.
In a full council meeting held on November 1, Masvingo Mayor Cllr Collen Maboke said they have passed a number of resolutions but nothing has materialized and management is answerable.
“We discussed quite a number of issues but surprisingly nothing has been done to that effect. It is a serious case of misconduct for an employee to fail to implement a resolution.
“We discussed long back that there is need for council to engage the services of a legal mind who can be incorporated into council’s payroll to handle the legal desk than hiring services of lawyers which are expensive after all. The resolution to employ a lawyer was passed long back, but as of now no interviews or advertisement for the post have been done,” said Maboke.
Alderman Selina Maridza also said failure to employ a full time lawyer to handle council affairs is a way of indirectly fattening the pockets of established lawyers through whose accounts the debts go through during the collection processes.
“The fact that the collected debts go through the accounts of lawyers engaged as debt collectors translate to fattening the pockets of the hired lawyers. It would have been wiser to employ a lawyer meant to deal with legal issues arising at council so that rate payers’ resources are saved as it would be cheaper to go it that way,” said Maridza.
Ward 10 councilor Sengerai Manyanga also weighed in saying it was uneconomical to splash council money on debt collection instead of employing a full time council employee to serve the purpose.
“These employees are answerable to us as councillors and thus should abide by their codes of conduct and adhere to the requirements of their positions. Your worship can you please set dates for the implementation of this resolution like November end as being the latest.
“At times we have to weigh the options available for us like how much are we paying for example ZW$ 300 000 to a lawyer and how much will a lawyer earn on a monthly basis, then it defies logic if management opt for an expensive option when a cheaper alternative is there,” Manyanga said.
He also added that there was need for management especially through the chamber secretary to ensure resolutions are passed within the stipulated timeframe to avoid inconveniences associated with the delays.
“It is therefore imperative for management to implement the resolutions we would have passed so that next time when we sit down as councillors, we do so in good faith that the programmes would be implemented other than coming back to the same issues,” said Manyanga.
He also expressed concern over failure by council employees to be at their workplaces in time.
“Your worship, if it is possible just try to be here and check on the times at which employees arrive at their work place. You would be shocked to realise that some come at 9am while others would be here by 0930hours,” he remarked.
Responding to the issues raised, chamber secretary Vitalis Shonhai said the issue of implementing resolutions was still in the pipeline though management is yet to follow the procedures required in recruiting the needed employee.
“Council is working on the issue and we shall try to make sure the issue is looked into,” said Shonhai.
