Former Harare mayor, Muchadeyi Masunda, has bounced back at Town House after being appointed to the Harare Sunshine Holdings (HSH)’s board.
Harare City Council (HCC) appointed Masunda to the HSH board at a recent full council meeting following recommendations by the council’s business development committee, which said HSH was set to benefit significantly from his extensive business management knowledge. He has since accepted the appointment.
“The committee underscored the need to appoint the former mayor of the City of Harare, Mr M. A. Masunda as a member of the Harare Sunshine Holdings board of directors in order to utilise his vast knowledge on management and operation of business,” the report said.
“The committee was convinced that Mr M A Masunda’s experience and expertise would be beneficial to council.”
Masunda, who is now widely tipped to take over from the current board chair, Percy Toriro, at this year’s annual general meeting scheduled for June, said he was looking forward to his stint with HSH.
He had a tumultuous tenure as Harare mayor between 2009 and 2013. He fought serious turf wars with former local government, public works and national housing minister, Ignatius Chombo, before he was replaced by the incumbent, Bernard Manyenyeni.
Masunda, who has sat on boards of various private and public companies, including Old Mutual, Zimplats, Meikles and Bindura Nickel Cooperation, is a practicing lawyer specialising in commercial arbitration. He also runs his own businesses.
He said his new assignment is “a continuation from where I left as mayor”.
“One of the things that are needed to be done urgently is to make the city’s idle assets sweat. The city is endowed with a lot of assets which if properly managed can generate revenue which can be channelled to the development of the city,” he said.
“I can give the example of the council farms which are teeming with heads of cattle numbering 5 000 to 7 000 at any given time. If they are properly paddocked by someone who has expertise, they can be very profitable and they can be useful in the resuscitation of the Cold Storage Company whose abattoirs are also lying idle. I am not saying I am an expert, but I will influence the appointment of someone with expertise to do the work,” he added.
He regretted having missed business opportunities while focusing on raising revenue from rates during his time as mayor.
“The previous council took their eyes off the ball and created an untenable situation where revenue has to come from rates. So we are saying we need to get these assets to sweat so that we can ease the pressure on ratepayers. That is part of the unfinished business of my tenure as mayor.
“I have spoken with the current council to say we can’t be looking at ratepayers all the time. We need to take stock of the city’s various assets and see if there is enough which is being done to make them sweat. The city has always financed itself since it was founded in 1890 and that should always be the case. All you need to do is introduce what is known as a cost recovery programme,” said Masunda.
The development comes as two of HSH subsidiaries, City Parking and Mabvazuva Village, recorded profit for the year to March 31, 2017, according to HSH’s annual business plan for 2017 which was recently unveiled to the city fathers by Toriro.
City Parking, which runs Harare’s Central Business District parking bays, realised a net profit of US$473 577 during the 2016 financial year and is projecting this to grow to US$516 777 during the current financial year.
Mabvazuva Village recorded a profit of US$5 600 during the 2016 financial year.
Only Sunshine Meats, whose operations were battered by declining beef quality and sales owing to invasions of its farms by illegal settlers, did not realise a profit.
In his recommendations, Toriro urged council to extend Harare CBD boundaries as a matter of urgency to generate more money for City Parking.
“The extended CBD boundaries (should) be gazetted as a matter of urgency to facilitate the creation of approximately 4 000 additional parking bays, thereby making a total of 900 parking bays available in Harare’s CBD,” said Toriro in his report.
Toriro also advised that dividends from council businesses should be dedicated to maintaining the city’s road network until such a time that the CBD road infrastructure reached acceptable standards or until such time that alternative funding for the urban road network is secured. Financial Gazette