Harare council bosses shelled out US$1 million on own luxury cars, US$500k on wages

By Caleb Chikwawawa

Harare City Council executives shelled out a staggering US$1 million in purchasing luxury vehicles for themselves coupled with enjoyment of a monthly budget of US$500,000 on paying wages to themselves.

The funds to purchase the Toyota Fortuners, mayor Jacob Mafume Tuesday told the Commission of Inquiry into Harare City Council’s administrative affairs, were sourced from City Parking, the local authority’s cash cow unit whose operations have been zealously pursued by Town House.

Mafume said the amount was used to purchase Toyota Fortuners for council honchos who have often been accused by residents of neglecting the city’s service delivery system in place of thanking themselves with fat perks.

Thabani Mpofu, while leading questioning, put it to the mayor that council’s lack of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has left departments without any monitoring mechanism.

Mafume agreed saying the anomaly has contributed to misuse of rate payers’ funds.

“Yes, that is one of the biggest challenges because for last year, the city council brought about a million US dollars to the city council,” he said.

“When we started asking where that US$1 million went, that’s when the problem began, and I’m told that the US$1 million was used to purchase executives cars, Fortuners and so forth. So, if you receive the money, you also need to be able to track how it has been used by the city council and then comes the difficulty.

“The incident occurred towards the August 2023 election. City Parking used to enforce on one by-law, which is the parking law, then we made a resolution for them to enforce another by-law to make them two. We have about 16 traffic by-laws, so, we gave them a second by-law.

“So, this by-law related to how you do proper parking. Now the sharing of the revenue was that they collect the revenue and we get changed fifty percent of that and the other fifty percent stays with the city parking.

“Now because it was the first year that they were implementing that by law, it raised US$2 million. and US$1 million. I’m not counting the ZiG. The US$1 million was then remitted to the city council.

“Now when the US$1 million was remitted to council, we were into elections. So, the council then dissolved.

“When we came back to then ask what happened to that US$1 million because we had earmarked it for the parking lots and all that, we were then told that it was used. What it was used for and how it was used for we were not told.

“We then learned that purchases of vehicles for the executives had been done in the time whilst we had been electioneering and coming back.”

Mafume revealed that there has been disorder in the way salaries are given to executives.

“When we came and started inquiring about those vehicles, it became opaque,” he added.

“It is the same with the executive salary roll. The last time it was raised here at the commission it was asked for it and when I raised to say ‘ok, I need the salary roll of the town clerk and the senior management’, the acting HR director came to my office with it in his hand and showed it in his hand.

“He refused to hand it over to me, he said that he has been instructed by the town clerk not to allow you to make a copy. So, he then sat at the opposite end of my desk and said these are the salaries that the executives are earning.

“‘When you have fine reading and memorising, I will then take them back to the town cleck’. So, I think from the paper that I read, the town clerk was the highest paid with US$27,000 a month. With allowances, it will come to a big figure.

“For the others, it will then cascade downwards, the minimum I read was around US$15,000.

“We want it changed because in my own calculation, the executive salary roll in itself can take about US$500,000 per month and that is an anomaly,” said Mafume.