Chivi Rural District Council (RDC) has passed a resolution
to buy 31 motor-bikes using funds from the sale of residential stands in
defiance of a directive given by the Minister of Local Government and Public
Housing, July Moyo.
The Mirror is reliably informed that that a three men
delegation led by the council chair, Godfrey Mukungunugwa had a meeting with
Moyo in Harare over the issue. Although the Minister gave the project to buy
motorbikes for 31 councilors the green light he instructed the local authority
not to use money coming from the sale of residential stands.
The councillors realised during a full council meeting
attended by The Mirror on Wednesday this week that the only account that has
enough money to buy the 31 bikes is the housing account and in any case when
they budgeted for the bikes they had planned to use money from sale of stands.
There was heated debate in council on what to do until they
resolved to defy the Minister.
One of their arguments was that the council’s term has just
33 months left and if they delayed to buy the motorbikes, they may never buy
them.
The bikes are going for US$1 200 each and the local
authority requires a total of US$ 37 200. The councilors will buy the
motorbikes through loans which they are supposed to pay back before their term
comes to an end..
Efforts to get a comment from Moyo were fruitless. Mukungunugwa
could not be reached for comment.
However, some councilors were against the motorbikes
project. They said that they were struggling to pay off loans for stands that
they got from the local authority at a discount of 40%.
“We have loans for stands which we are struggling to pay
because we only get $2 000 allowances and now you want to introduce another
loan scheme. We won’t be able to pay that off,” said one councillor.
“Let us agree to use
income generated from the stand sales as we had shown in our 2020 annual
budget,” said Mukungunugwa during the meeting.Masvingo Mirror
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