The ManicaPost
Andrew Maenzanise
During the stakeholder consultations in the preparation of the City of Mutare 2019 annual budget, the Town Clerk, Mr J Maligwa, gave a statement to the effect that 90percent of staff in the organisation were corrupt. Subsequent to that a lot was said about such a high figure on the local Diamond FM and in this weekly paper.
People would wonder why the City of Mutare would be left to get to such extent of rot whilst the local government authorities were watching. This was probably an exaggerated figure but he may not have been far from the truth. The term ‘corrupt’ should be understood in its proper context. According to Transparency International, corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain and it can be classified as grand, petty or political where;
Grand corruption is the abuse of high-level power that benefits the few at the expense of the many, and causes serious and widespread harm to individuals and society.
Petty corruption is the everyday abuse of entrusted power by public officials in their interactions with ordinary citizens, who often are trying to access basic goods or services in places like hospitals, schools, police departments and other agencies, and
Political corruption is the manipulation of policies, institutions and rules of procedure in the allocation of resources and financing by political decision makers, who abuse their position to sustain their power, status and wealth.
The writer worked for the City of Mutare for nearly fifteen years and seeks to share his observations regarding ‘corrupt tendencies’ among staff in this organisation. In 2016, the writer was promoted to a managerial level albeit in an acting capacity. His management style involved ensuring that employees had daily targets to which they would rate themselves against.
There was resistance from a number of sections as people had got used to simply report for duty without really achieving anything by the end of the day.
This did not affect the writer who would often face the wrath of the councillors for poor service delivery. The writer would hold meetings with staff in the various sections to motivate employees.
The biggest challenge then was that the employees were not getting their salaries and yet they were expected to give their best. Information would filter from among some of the employees that systems needed to be improved to ensure some decent level of service delivery, especially where this involved repairs to infrastructure. It was observed that staff from the City of Mutare would provide services directly to residents and land developers for private benefit. This may have been for survival since they were not getting salaries; but it had become a culture in the organisation.
This had serious implications particularly for works that needed to be certified by Council officials. Officers who had private interest in certain work would sometimes ‘inspect’ such work. In some cases officers would lodge building plans done by them, which plans they would then ‘examine and approve, and thereafter inspect the building stages’.
In other cases, officers would be engaged as ‘private consultants’ for work that the city would be asked for comments as a stakeholder or as the authority and the same officers would be asked to prepare comments!
Through concerned workers who wanted to see change in the manner services were being provided, the writer devised systems that ensured that corrupt behaviour is taken care of. This, however, did not go down well with some and this saw the writer being harassed in December 2016.
Some local bouncer wanted to kill him and this was said before the leadership of municipal police, who just watched without taking any action. Grand corruption has led to the Manicaland Province failing to have vibrant consultants firms in the fields of architecture, town planning and engineering. The work is being done by officers in council and government employment in the various local authorities in the province. The writer was shocked to hear one officer at Mutare Rural District Council advising a resident of Zimunya Township that a fellow officer at the council offices could draw a building plan for him! This is how far the rot has gone! It would not be surprising that most of the challenges being faced by Mutare City Council in infrastructure repair and maintenance were caused by employees in this organisation in the first place.
The writer challenges them to investigate the engineers responsible for designs and contract works on all projects from the 1990s. Some officers are known to draw plans, even whilst at the work place. They carry their laptops with them to their offices specifically to enable them do their private work whilst at their stations. The writer tried to stop this habit to no avail; in fact, he attracted retribution.
The writer, again, challenges City of Mutare to audit building plans done in the past five years; it would not be surprising to discover that more than half of them were done by council officials, and for private benefit! Petty corruption, as observed by the writer involved payment of money for the building inspectors to go and inspect each stage during building construction.
This money was pocketed by the building inspectors. They had their reasons for demanding such money and it became a culture in the builders’ community that one had to pay in order that one’s work may be inspected. Political corruption involved allocation of stands to councillors as reported in one issue of this paper where councillors in the previous administration are said to have been unfairly allocated stands.
The observations mentioned above were from the engineering department. The housing department had its fair share of practices that borders on ‘corrupt tendencies’.
A close friend of the writer applied for a vacant stand only to discover one pastor holding papers in connection with the stand, having been assisted by housing personnel. He pursued the matter with the then head of the department to no avail.
There were many such cases. The applicant would see somebody else, with adequate proof of ownership, gathering materials to construct a house at the stand applied for.
Where Council advertised that they were going to sell stands to those on the waiting list; prospective buyers would nearly always be shocked to hear that ‘all stands have been sold’, with only a few of them having secured stands. It became common knowledge that some stands would be ‘on sale from certain individuals’ later. The finance department also had its shortcomings.
This article was written by A J Maenzanise; a former employee of City of Mutare. He is a land surveying consultant at A J Maenzanise Land Surveyors. He may be contacted on the following numbers: +263775872540 or 263202061586 or [email protected].
