HARARE – Former Harare Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni and ex-Acting Town Clerk Josephine Ncube have been arrested by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) on charges of criminal abuse of duty, accused of unlawfully altering a land development agreement with Shelter Zimbabwe that allegedly cost the city approximately US$20 million in revenue.
The pair are accused of amending the 2013 agreement to allow Shelter Zimbabwe to sell unserviced stands, with the proceeds reportedly not remitted to the local authority.
According to the allegations, in 2013, the Harare City Council entered into an agreement with Shelter Zimbabwe for the development of 1,500 residential stands on 657 hectares of land in Tafara, Mabvuku.
The initial agreement stipulated that Shelter Zimbabwe would be responsible for infrastructure development, after which the Council would allocate and sell the serviced stands and subsequently reimburse Shelter Zimbabwe.
It is, however, alleged that in 2017, while Manyenyeni served as Mayor and Ncube as Acting Town Clerk, the agreement was altered. This amendment reportedly authorised Shelter Zimbabwe to sell the residential stands even before the necessary infrastructure development was completed.
Following this amendment, Shelter Zimbabwe proceeded to sell the stands but allegedly failed to develop the land as agreed and did not remit the proceeds from the sales to the Harare City Council.
This failure to remit funds is the basis of the US$20 million revenue loss cited in the allegations.
For over two decades, Harare City Council has been plagued by corruption, mismanagement, and lack of accountability. President Emmerson Mnangagwa last year appointed a commission of inquiry to investigate the operations of the council since 2017.
The five-member commission, led by retired High Court judge Justice Maphios Cheda is yet to submit the report to the President. But preliminary findings of the commission have exposed massive corruption and governance concerns negatively affecting the former Sunshine City.
One of the key issues that were exposed is that developers, leveraging institutionalised corruption, reportedly sold 10,000 unserviced residential and commercial stands in Mabvuku and Warren Park, a violation of their development agreements, the commission was informed.
Giving evidence before the commission, councillor Blessing Duma, the council’s audit committee chairperson, indicated that high-ranking officials colluded with these developers, resulting in approximately US$20 million in losses.
