HARARE mayor Bernard Manyenyeni, who has been sucked into a nepotism storm over the selection of the city’s finance director and town clerk, has denied the allegations, declaring “my conscience is clear”.
BY RICHARD CHIDZA
Manyenyeni is accused of preferring a relative to take over as the city’s finance director and manipulating the ongoing process to appoint a new town clerk.
Insiders claimed Manyenyeni had created a private email address where all applicants for the advertised position of Harare’s chief administrator where to respond.
“He created a private email and using that, he filtered people who were applying from within that he did not like. The remaining names were then forwarded to private consultants, but the damage had already been done,” a source said.
NewsDay understands that interviews to finalise the selection process were done last Friday after the majority of those who applied had fallen by the wayside at the psychometric test level. Manyenyeni confirmed he had created an email address specifically for the process of accepting applications for the position of town clerk.
He also denied rumours that the city’s finance director, Justin Mandizha, had been appointed because of their relationship.
“I created the email address for confidentiality purposes and the fact that people are now creating a storm out of nothing means I was right. I think I did the right thing as the city’s leader to take that position, otherwise the whole process would have been compromised by leakages to the Press,” Manyenyeni said yesterday.
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However, he conceded he was related to Mandizha.
“Yes, my maternal great-grandmother was indeed a Mandizha. I had no involvement in the process of hiring of this financial director or his current contract with council.
“I only discovered that he had been hired after the appointment. It is not my area of involvement as a non-executive mayor. I had neither word nor finger in the entire process,” he said.
“I had not seen him for over a decade. I did not know he was even in the country. I understood he was in Swaziland.”
Mandizha, according to sources, has been on probation for nine months instead of the normal three.
“My conscience is clear when it comes to both the issue of the finance director as well as the town clerk’s selection process. I did what I was supposed to do as head of council, the process of selecting the city’s town clerk needed a human face and the person happened to be myself. It could have been anybody. I never removed any name and I am willing to go through the whole process with anyone,” Manyenyeni said.
