FORMER Harare mayor Muchadeyi Masunda has said council should recruit a professional person of integrity and a non-political actor, who should not be influenced by politicians in discharging civic duties as town clerk.
MOSES MATENGA
This follows reports that 140 candidates had expressed interest in the position of Harare town clerk which fell vacant in August following the firing of town clerk Tendai Mahachi.
Masunda, who is part of the 15-member panel set up to interview applicants for the top post, said the capital city should pin its hopes on the new town clerk to be selected from the intense interviews to be carried out by the body. He said from a huge list of applicants, there was an “obvious need” to whittle down the number of applicants by identifying and weeding out the “no-hoppers”.
“The selection panel has a glorious opportunity of choosing an individual who has the integrity as well as the capacity to drive a progressive agenda whose main focus is delivering on civic as opposed to party political issues,”Masunda said.
“Once we get the right chief executive officer for Harare, things should start working again and, inevitably, we will get Zimbabwe back on track. What is not appreciated by many citizens is that the nature and scale of the capital city’s operations are equivalent to about 10 government ministries put together.
“It is, therefore, absolutely imperative for us to move away from the politics of patronage which, since the mid-1990s, resulted in a number of key positions, in both central and local government structures, being occupied by individuals who were eminently unsuitable and therefore had no business to be anywhere near those positions.”
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Residents have also welcomed the panel saying it presented them with an opportunity to, for the first time, actively participate in coming up with an ideal candidate.
The panel, set up by the human resources committee and approved by full council, consists of Masunda, two representatives from residents’ associations, eight chairpersons of council committees, mayor Bernard Manyenyeni and his deputy Chris Mbanga.
Mahachi had running battles and clashes with city fathers. He was accused of getting the protection of ex-Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo, who blocked several attempts by the councillors to oust him.
