BUREAUCRATIC bungling could cost Harare City Council dearly
after works director Isiah Zvenyika Chawatama reportedly failed to utilise $10
million disbursed by the Zimbabwe Road Administration (Zinara) for roads
rehabilitation on time.
Zinara released the money in April after HCC requested
funding for rehabilitation of its pothole-riddled road network, but Chawatama
reportedly failed to repair the roads, leading to suspicion that the money
could have been diverted.
This is not the first time Chawatama has been in the eye of
a storm at the local authority. In October last year, he was sent on forced
leave to pave way for investigations to establish the reasons of “operational
challenges in his department”.
According to insiders, Zinara gave Harare $10 million when
the exchange rate was 1:25 against the United States dollar, translating to
US$400 000, but the first tranche of the money was only released last week to
buy tar when the exchange rate is now 1:80.
NewsDay understands that the matter came to light after
Zinara reportedly requested acquittals to show how the money was used.It is
understood that HCC has only accounted for $7 million so far.
Chawatama refused to comment on the issue and referred
NewsDay to an engineering division official, one Mutumhe.
“Talk to Mutumhe on those acquittals. He is the one who is
totally in control over those issues. As for the use of the money I do not know
anything,” Chawatama said.
Mutumhe said he could not speak to the Press over the issue
and hung up the phone call.
Council finance director Stanley Ndemera confirmed that
they received the money in April and it has been sitting in their bank
account.He said council was still to provide acquittals to Zinara “because they
have not yet used all the money they received.”
“Yes, we received $10 million from Zinara in April, but the
money was still in our account as some of the raw materials came from South
Africa. We only received the tar last week and that is when we released part of
the money,” Ndemera said.
He acknowledged that when they received the money, it was
valued at close to US$400 000, but due to inflation, the value had been eroded
and it was now less US$100 000.
“We only disbursed the money last week after receiving it
in April this year, but I am not sure why it took long before it could be
disbursed to its intended use. I acknowledge that the money has been eroded by
the inflation,” Ndemera said.
Zinara spokesperson Tendai Mugabe said the road
administrator had received some information from the local authority, but they
were “still studying it”.
“I can confirm that we disbursed $10 million to the Harare
City Council during the first quarter of 2020 and the council have submitted
their acquittal which our technical department is studying,” Mugabe said.
Newsday
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