By Jeffrey Muvundusi
The Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC has ordered the council here to immediately put on sale one of the two recently purchased mayoral vehicles, with the proceeds to be channelled towards service delivery.
The city’s mayor Martin Moyo recently took delivery of a $118 000 Mercedes Benz GLE 250, hardly three months after the local authority had bought him a $63 000 Chevrolet Trailblazer.
Following public outcry, the council summoned the mayor and his councillors to a May 25 meeting in which provincial spokesperson Felix Mafa yesterday said as a party, they were forced to come up with the resolution regarding the contentious matter.
“Because there was an outcry of two expensive mayoral cars, the MDC provincial executive committee came up with a resolution that the council must let the mayor use the Benz as part of his working conditions but park the Trailblazer forthwith so that it can be sold and its proceeds used for service provision,” Mafa said.
“It was thought to be very expensive for the poor council to spend $118 000 on the Benz GLE 250 and the $63 000 for the Trailblazer. If need be, the town clerk must use the BT50 model until his car of choice is delivered by September 2017,” he said.
According to Mafa, council was forced to acquire the Trailblazer after a delay in delivery of the Benz, which had been ordered from Germany.
The provincial spokesperson said living a luxurious life at the expense of the suffering masses was not part of the MDC’s DNA.
“We therefore decided that therefore we are social democratic party which should not live luxuriously and exuberantly at the expense of the residents.
“As a result, we have ordered our councillors to go and make a resolution that will see the Trailblazer be parked immediately and advertised for resale so that the proceeds go and alleviate service delivery to the people of Bulawayo,” he said.
In an earlier interview with the Daily News, Moyo saw no problem with the acquisition of expensive vehicles.
“Council buys tens of cars in any year. The mayoral Benz is just one car in a large fleet of cars. At $118 000, that is what it cost. It is in fact in the lower range. The car is not Martin Moyo’s. I’ll leave it behind for my successor in 12 months,” Moyo said. Daily News