Zanu PF councillors boycott meeting

By The Standard and Newsday | Aug. 28, 2021 | 2 Min read

BY NHAU MANGIRAZI KAROI Town Council’s five-member finance committee on Tuesday deferred a meeting demanding transparency and accountability from management over use of funds. The five councillors, all from Zanu PF, requested financial transactions for the past five months before any meeting could take place. “We have not been holding meetings for the past five […]

BY NHAU MANGIRAZI

KAROI Town Council’s five-member finance committee on Tuesday deferred a meeting demanding transparency and accountability from management over use of funds.

The five councillors, all from Zanu PF, requested financial transactions for the past five months before any meeting could take place.

“We have not been holding meetings for the past five months and when we came for our first meeting on Tuesday, finance director (Tongai Namusala) presented a summary of the council transactions when we wanted monthly transactions,” one councillor, who refused to be named, said.

The committee was not satisfied by how council has been running its business during the COVID-19 lockdown period, alleging gross irregularities in the tendering process.

Council chairman Abel Matsika confirmed that the meeting was deferred.

‘‘Yes, I can confirm that the finance meeting was deferred to Thursday as the committee wanted all paperwork. All statements were not ready, but the policymakers want statements from the period council stopped regular meetings in April. The meeting will proceed tomorrow (Thursday),’’ said Matsika in a written response to NewsDay Weekender.

The meeting, however, failed to take place on Thursday.

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According to documents seen by NewsDay Weekender, a memo by the buyer department requested mobile phones and Bluetooth printers on October 13, 2020.

The first request for a quotation was from a Harare based company, Gripp Investment P/L that had Samsung Galaxy A10 going for $25 200 instead of Itel P36 Pro as required by council. It offered USB external HDD Bluetooth at $10 520 while HP 290 G2 desktop 500 gig was pegged at $110 000, HP 15 Core ram at $120 000. Power cables for desktops were pegged at $1200 as well as Itel P36 Pro mobile phone price at $13 800 each.

A local company picked to supply the mobile phones is reportedly a stationary supplier around Karoi town and Hurungwe district. The company, Davvita Enterprises, pegged the Itel P36 Pro at $17 500 each with a difference of $3 700 from BusTech.

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