Acting Harare town clerk faces suspension
Acting Harare City Council town clerk Josephine Ncube faces suspension, along with three other council directors, for pampering themselves with generous benefits and allowances at a time when service delivery in the capital city has hit its lowest ebb.
A government-sanctioned audit recommended that Local Government Minister Saviour Kasukuwere suspends Ncube, the city’s human capital director, Cainos Chingombe and acting finance director, Tendai Kwenda, with immediate effect, pending further investigations.
This was after auditors dispatched by the Local Government Ministry unearthed what appears to be extravagant use of ratepayers’ money between 2013 and last year — a period when
Tendai Mahachi was still calling the shots at Town House, as town clerk.
Mahachi was axed from council in July 2015.
The audit revealed that five managers were collectively paid US$343 900 as holiday allowances between March and July 2015, through the Real Time Gross Settlement system (RTGS) yet there was no proof that they ever went for any holiday.
This was in breach of council’s conditions of service that required them to produce evidence of travel in the form of receipts.
Mahachi was alleged to have taken the lion’s share, pocketing US$186 000, transferred into his bank account on July 7, 2015.
City of Harare health director, Proper Chonzi, was paid US$77 100; while Ncube and Chingombe got US$40 000 each. Phillip Pfukwa, the director of works, got US$3 440.
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In another incident, Mahachi, Ncube, Chingombe, Chonzi and Pfukwa were paid inflated performance bonuses amounting to US$607 250. Again, Mahachi received the biggest chunk of it amounting to US$135 100. Ncube got US$122 000, while Chingombe was paid US$112 000.
Chonzi and Pfukwa received US$95 000 and US$21 450 respectively.
This time, they were joined by former water director, Christopher Zvobgo and Kwenda — the current acting as finance director, who pocketed US$80 000 and US$40 800 respectively.
The audit revealed that the city managers paid themselves hefty bonuses despite the fact that no performance appraisal was done as per requirement.
They also did not get council approval in violation of section 288 (7) of the Urban Councils Act, which stipulates that council shall not expend moneys unless such expenditure has been covered by estimates or approved supplementary estimates.
A performance bonus is compensation beyond normal wages and is awarded after a performance appraisal and analysis of projects has satisfactorily been completed by the employee over a specific period of time.
The city fathers also paid themselves hefty holiday allowances.
On July 7, 2015, they received a combined US$173 880 through what they termed “On Call” allowances.
The money, which was unbudgeted for, was shared among five managers namely Mahachi (US$50 400); Chingombe (US$47 880); Ncube (US$45 360); Pfukwa (US$17 640) and Zvobgo (US$12 600).Auditors also discovered that at least 40 city managers were paid “unbudgeted for exorbitant education/school fees allowances amounting to US$556 330 outside employment costs. The amounts as per invoices were paid directly into their personal bank accounts using the RTGS system”.
The amount paid to managers according to individual receipts was incongruent with the US$882 443 reflecting in the consolidated total payments, raising fears that it could have been inflated. Financial Gazette
