Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. HARARE councillors want to know how much revenue is being generated from billboard advertising.
They claim that the local authority could be losing millions in potential revenue as a result of lack of appropriate accounting procedures.
At a full council meeting on Monday, ward 16 councillor Denford Ngadziore is said to have asked management to provide proof of how much revenue is being generated from billboard advertisements across the city.
On the other hand, mayor Jacob Mafume says council management has been preventing councillors from getting full information on the revenue being raked in.
Town House is a crime scene.
If the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission, police and judicial officers set up base at council offices to nab, try and convict all those found with their hands in the cookie jar, they will record a 200% success rate.
We bet our bottom dollar that the judicial officers will convict council officials on a daily basis until that place is cleaned of the mess stifling the development of the city.
“Advertising rakes in huge revenue. We need to have systems that can easily track how many billboards there are and how much they are paying and we should get that amount of money,” Mafume said.
“I have been asking that those systems be introduced because we cannot rely on officials who have been preventing councillors from getting that information.”
Accusations are flying that council officials are taking advantage of lack of enterprise resource planning to loot the municipality dry.
Corruption, mismanagement as well as lack of accountability have been cited as common practice at Town House, Cleveland House, Rowan Martin Building and even at the Mbare offices.
Today, all open spaces have been sold to homeseekers.
The vultures are circling every open space in the capital, trying to sell to the highest bidder.
We understand there is one city father who has sold almost every open space in their ward such that there are only a few greenways left there.
Indeed, the vultures are circling.
During the probe by the commission of inquiry into Harare’s affairs, Mafume stated that he had been denied an opportunity to access a copy of the council payroll.
All this because there is a clique which does not want its dirty linen to be washed in public.
They do not want to be exposed that they are in it for fat paychecks and perks.
There have been reports of poisoning at the citadel of council business.
Former mayor Ben Manyenyeni early this year claimed that he deliberately avoided eating at Town House during his tenure, fearing poisoning after leading a campaign to slash astronomical salaries and perks earned by city executives.
Manyenyeni, who served as mayor from 2013 to 2018, spearheaded efforts to cut bloated salaries at a time when then town clerk Tendai Mahachi reportedly earned over US$30 000 per month, while seven other senior managers took home around US$20 000 each.
Acting human capital director Bozman Matengarufu claimed that he was poisoned twice at Town House.
We should also bear in mind that it is possible some of the protagonists pushing for the disclosure of the billboard advertising revenue want a share of the same.
Surely, Town House is rotten, and the vultures are, indeed, circling.
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