Harare City Council has lost over $2 million in a racket involving municipal officials, transport operators and some unlicensed businesses, NewsDay has learnt.
BY XOLISANI NCUBE
Chairperson of council’s audit committee, Enock Mupamawonde on Monday told a full council meeting that multiple leakages and corruption were costing the municipality a lot of revenue.
“From our snap investigations, we found that most of the commuter omnibuses that are in the city have fake licence discs,” Mupamawonde said.
“Who is benefiting from the money, your worship? Someone within the council? The business licensing revenue has dropped by 17% from $7 million in 2014 to $5,8 million in 2016.
“The fall in revenue can be attribute to the high incidence of fake licences in the market and lack of enforcement on licences for businesses operating within Harare.”
According to a survey conducted in March, of 976 businesses in Harare, 3% (33) were operating with fake business licences, while 51% (495) were not licensed at all.
“In the same vein, of the 782 commuter omnibuses, 14% (106) of them are operating with fake rank discs, while 8% (60) are operating without valid rank discs at all,” the meeting was told.
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Council’s major cash cow has been licences, with the transport wing being the major injector.
As a way to plug the leakages, council has proposed to enlist the service of State-owned road authority, the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration to ensure that commuter omnibuses are given rank discs the moment they apply to renew their vehicle licences.
“Council, through the director of health services and city enforcement manager, in conjunction with the police, should carry out a wide blitz, which could culminate in the prosecution of all licensing defaulters and creation of a more reflective database,” the council resolved.
Mupamawonde told the committee that council had been losing fuel due to a porous system, which resulted in 52 000 litres of petrol worth $70 400 being misappropriated within 13 days.
