The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
WHEN a young Mr Kimpton Ndimande who was just coming out of college in 1982 saw the job advertisement for a substantive Bulawayo Town Clerk, he immediately applied for it, his fresh mind telling him this was just a mere clerical job, which he easily qualified for.
He didn’t qualify but something happened that has kept him at Tower Block for the past 40 years. On 31 January 2023, Mr Ndimande will be packing his desk, descending the Tower Block lift from his 12th floor office for the last time after having served the local authority in various capacities for the last 40 years. For him, the journey has been fulfilling and in an interview with Sunday News Online News Editor, Vusumuzi Dube (VD) he said he does not regret any single day he served the local authority.
TOWER BLOCK
Mr Ndimande (KN) said when he looks back at his 40-year journey he is filled with pride and does not regret the day he sent in his application letter, initially for the Town Clerk position, as he went on to rise through the ranks to become the Finance Director.
VD: Mr Ndimande on 31 January next year you retire from council, take us through the journey. When did you join the Bulawayo City Council?
KN: I started working in the local authority in December 1982. Before I come to that let me share something I did before.
From school I applied for the town clerk position, which had since arisen because I thought the position was just a clerical job. The job was eventually given to the late Michael Ndubiwa who became the town clerk designate at that time. Well after applying they called me and told me I was still young and uneducated for that post but they had taken my application to the Towerblock, that’s where the clerical job I was looking for was.
My real start at council was in 1982 when I joined as a clerical assistant. It was in the internal audit section. They were still running a liquor operation at that time so I was in that little section called liquor statistics where we were recording liquor statistics and analysing data for the liquor undertaking. Then I rose through the ranks and became a principal accountant in housing. My biggest accomplishment was in October 1995 when the late former Town Clerk, Mr Middleton Nyoni, the then treasurer at that time and Mrs Mlobani set in motion the computerisation process of the city.
Bulawayo City Council
They had bought all the machinery and the system had been put in place but it was not rolled out. When I got to the tenth floor, I rolled out that computerisation to the high density suburbs, that is our housing offices and from there on, the city was a computerised city.
We computerised all the offices and got them networked properly. When I left that section I joined the audit section as the chief internal auditor. That section was not computerised yet but I got it all computerised and introduced a computer assistant auditing technique but just before we rolled it out, it was discontinued by the producer, so we introduced an interactive data extraction for windows, that’s what we are using today for carrying out our internal audits. Then I joined the treasurer’s department as a deputy treasurer on 1 august 2009 then I became the treasurer on 1 July 2010 and I have held that post till date.
VD: Through the years in council, which were your lowest points?
KN: I have had a lot of ups and downs but one that really stands out is when I got promoted at one stage within the internal audit section. I had been appraised and my performance was not up to standard, my supervisor then thought I was not pulling my weight which could have been true because I was young and you know what young people are like. That appraisal did not reward me; it did not entitle to move to the next notch of my grade. I didn’t know it then that I couldn’t move to the next notch but a senior post arose and I was appointed to that.
After about a month or so I received a letter telling me I was going to be regraded back to my junior position. I got confused but then I discovered that it was because of that appraisal and it made sense that I couldn’t move to the next grade if I couldn’t even move to the next notch within my grade. But I was young and piteous then, so I started making a lot of noise but there was nothing I could do. But you can imagine how difficult it is for a young man to be promoted and then you are told you are no longer promoted. That’s one of the things that standout that really hurt me a lot. There have been happy days that I have experienced within council that far outweigh the mishaps that I’ve had, and overally I have enjoyed my stay here in council.
VD: What of the major milestones which you achieved?
KN: Taking you back to the computerisation for a bit, that entire exercise was grueling, I remember when we did Luveve, we dismissed at 3am and you’d be expected at work by 8am and believe it or not by the time we did Lobengula we knocked off around 5am. We just went home, bathed and went back to work. It was a challenging task that I enjoyed doing, that was a major achievement. But coming to other achievements, the post that I’m in has also been a challenge. We used to have our accounts on time all the time up until our economy took a downturn.
We couldn’t do our accounts for about two years, I remember when we were clearing the zeros, the computer system was not designed for all that and we ended up getting funny figures which made it difficult to produce accounts. So, for two years we could not produce accounts. And then this other year we started spontaneous dollarisation. I remember it was February of that year, we started producing our accounts. we started with the rand because we thought it was the reasonable currency to adopt especially for this part of the country but then we had to change later on to the United States dollar because we noticed the whole country was using it.
We only had eleven months and the system was saying we could not produce accounts for eleven months. After talking about it for almost a year, we finally agreed that we would produce the accounts for the eleven months. This is why you find out we had a problem catching up with the accounts from thereon which fortunately we now have but then unfortunately Covid-19 brought us back to those problems of not producing accounts on time which fortunately again now we have gone over that.
This was a big challenge and of course the challenge of service delivery itself, within this fraternity has been a nightmare for people in finance because every department is expecting resources, no department can operate without money and there is not enough money to dish around.
VD: In terms of service delivery during your time takes us through the phases you witnessed over the years?
KN: There was a point when I was in council where we began to remember the time when we joined council, the money we collected today, was not needed for operations on that day. We needed it ten months down the line, so we used to have about four senior officers whose job on a daily basis was to place money that we would have collected. They placed it in financial institutions because we didn’t need it. So we had no problem paying suppliers, paying employees, we used to pay twice a month on the 15th and on the 30th. All suppliers were falling on their feet to deal with us because we had enough money.
Another challenge we have faced along with everyone else in this industry is that of funding capital projects. Accounting for local authorities, back then, the money you collect for housing, you can only use for housing and so forth. If you wanted to use it in another fund, you must have a council resolution for that and this other fund is borrowing from this one at interest and you will refund this money at a particular date that you promised you will because each fund should stand on its feet. All those boundaries have blurred now because of the situation we are in, that’s why you find now we have problems maintaining our assets.
In the past, a person at housing would tell you that they want to service the building on this date next year and you would budget for it then there was no problem. But now when he comes to you, you don’t have the money and that planned maintenance has been a problem, that is why you find things breaking down. For a local authority when it comes to capital funding it needs a lot of money because infrastructure is social in nature. If you build a road and someone doesn’t pay rates you cannot say don’t walk on our roads.
If we clean water and I give you your water and you don’t pay for it, we can’t subtract the cups you drink at production, we still have to produce that water. We can close the water for a few days but again it is our responsibility to make sure you are healthy, if you become sick you become our problem so we have to balance all these things.
Therefore, for capital funding, we normally get it from borrowings, our borrowings should be of very long nature because we have this principle of equity that we cannot have one generation paying for all the properties for other generations to enjoy for nothing. If we do that the other generations then don’t have affinity to their property.
VD: You hold a critical position in council and over the years you have obviously been the subject of onslaughts from the media, how have you handled this pressure?
KN: When it comes to being a victim of the media, I would say I am proud to be working for a righteous organisation. By that I mean we were an honest organisation for instance, if you make a mistake in your account that benefits us and we discover it we must correct it even if you will never discover it that’s how we have been working.
Therefore, you will find that even in billing we are very open, that’s how we have dealt with the media. I remember I was saying during a meeting that was organised by the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association, telling them that if they want to have a meeting like that and they want to invite us, pass through our offices and tell us the information you want because we generate a lot of information and we can package it in different ways depending on who wants it. I have noticed, if you give the media information, they will investigate it and if they find its true they support you and I think by in large this city has stood up to that.
VD: What is your advice to younger generation who would want to venture into your career path?
KN: My advice to the younger generation is very simple; in this modern environment you need to improve your education. When we joined councils, Ordinary level was king but today a Bachelor’s degree in this council is nothing, we can talk about Masters but people are talking about PhDs so if you are young, you need to be up to date with your education, you need to be within the trends of your train.
VD: 31 January next year you officially leave BCC, what is the next career path for you?
KN: Over the years you pick up a lot of experience in life and within the profession, so I know there has been a push for those of us who have gone through all these years to publish something about these years, it is my hope that I will be able to do that and to also offer my services where they would be needed in an advisory capacity. I will also look after my few goats, drink the milk there after and then die. I have enjoyed my working years especially in council, this is a good organisation to work for.
VD: Thank you Mr Ndimande and all the best
KN: Thank you.
