KWEKWE town clerk, Emmanuel Musara’s bid to award himself his official house ahead of retirement has been temporarily put on hold after councillors resisted the move.
BY BLESSED MHLANGA
During a full council meeting this week, Musara gave notice that he was entitled to take over his official residence in line with a government circular of 1994.
“As a follow-up to the initial circular 75 of 1994, the honourable Local Government minister directed that all local authorities should facilitate issuance of title deeds to genuine and deserving tenants, who have rented council accommodation for a period of more than 20 years. Therefore, the following staff members now meet the criteria as stipulated in the circular,” the memo submitted by chamber secretary, Lucia Mkandla read.
Mkandla, in her memo, said she was implementing circular 1 of 2015 titled Title deeds for home ownership schemes.
The memo, which was marked “for information” and which councillors argue was not supposed to be debated in council, only had two people on its list, Musara and director of housing, Newton Dete.
The two are due to leave the local authority next year and this year respectively.
However, councillors refused to let the matter pass without debate, saying it was in violation of a council resolution and further argued that the houses were not put on rental, but were official council houses, which were part of their terms of service, therefore, could not be considered as rented homes.
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Finance committee chairperson, Janet Ticharunga, said: “We have a council resolution that all houses occupied by council officials will not be sold unless new houses are built. We can’t let go of our house then we are forced to rent a house for the new town clerk at the expense of our ratepayers.”
A special council meeting to discuss the matter is now set for next week.
Mayor, Matenda Madzoke confirmed the standoff, but said he would only give the council position after the special council meeting.
