{"id":103414,"date":"2025-01-22T23:25:06","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T21:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/marara-received-us8k-from-harare-council-to-buy-electronic-gadgets-during-his-suspension"},"modified":"2025-01-31T22:44:49","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T20:44:49","slug":"marara-received-us8k-from-harare-council-to-buy-electronic-gadgets-during-his-suspension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/marara-received-us8k-from-harare-council-to-buy-electronic-gadgets-during-his-suspension","title":{"rendered":"Marara Received US$8k From Harare Council To Buy Electronic Gadgets During His Suspension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Zimbabwe. <\/strong><\/span>Harare City Council\u2019s executive assistant, Matthew Marara, testified on Tuesday before the commission of inquiry into governance issues at Harare City Council, revealing that he received US$8,000 for gadgets during his suspension.<\/p>\n<p>Marara was suspended from the council in 2020 and returned to Town House in May 2023, in defiance of the Ministry of Local Government\u2019s directive that all council officials with court cases must not report for duty.<\/p>\n<p>Testifying before the commission, Marara stated that Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume appointed a committee that approved the money he received.<\/p>\n<p>The money included an astonishing US$3,256 for newspaper subscriptions, US$3,700 for a laptop, US$2,550 for a cell phone, and US$1,920 for an iPad, among other benefits.<\/p>\n<p>The inflated prices for Marara\u2019s benefits raise concerns of corruption and mismanagement at the Harare City Council. Said Marara:<\/p>\n<p>There were dues I was supposed to be given. By the time I was not at work, I was supposed to get these newspapers when I was at work, so I am used to reading newspapers, so I continued buying newspapers on<\/p>\n<p>Marara\u2019s controversial compensation package comes at a time when the City of Harare is grappling with a severe lack of funds, which is hampering its ability to provide basic services to residents.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Zimbabwe<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Zimbabwe. Harare City Council\u2019s executive assistant, Matthew Marara, testified on Tuesday before the commission of inquiry into governance issues at Harare City Council, revealing that he received US$8,000 for gadgets during his suspension. Marara was suspended from the council in 2020 and returned to Town House in May 2023, in defiance of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":103413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[1691,13998,852,16832,15403,19],"class_list":["post-103414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","tag-city-of-harare","tag-commission-of-inquiry","tag-harare-city-council","tag-harare-commission-of-inquiry","tag-matthew-marara","tag-zimbabwe"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Marara Received US$8k From Harare Council To Buy Electronic Gadgets During His Suspension - zimbabwe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Harare City 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