The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Municipal Reporter
LESS than six months before the end of their terms in office, a rift has emerged among Bulawayo councillors emanating from a failed attempt to appoint new council committee chairpersons.
The issue of changing council committee chairpersons every year exposes councillors’ deep seated divisions as they jostle to be part of the all-powerful general purposes committee that is made up of committee chairpersons. According to Urban Councils Act Section 103, council can rotate council committees every August but this has not happened at the local authority since 2009.
The current committee chairpersons are Clr Mlandu Ncube (Finance and Development committee), Clr Siboniso Khumalo (Future Water Supplies and Water Action Committee), Clr Thabitha Ngwenya (Health, Housing and Education Committee), Clr Silas Chigora (Environmental Management and Engineering Services committee) and Clr Thobani Ncube (Town Lands and Planning committee).
In the latest development, some councillors who have failed to rise up to head council committees tried to push a motion to rotate the committees and subsequently appoint new chairpersons late last year but this was blocked by a faction of the councillors leading to the recent fall out.
According to council confidential report, the councillors had already divided themselves into the five key committees with the only task at hand being the appointment of new chairpersons.
However, this move was later blocked through a council caucus with council senior staffers also recommending that the current committees remain in place until the end of their tenure in office to ensure continuity.
Council sources revealed that some councillors had expressed their displeasure on the move to block the move saying their colleagues were unnecessarily holding on to power.
“What came out from that meeting is that there are some of our colleagues who just don’t want to relinquish power, they want to continue as chairpersons not giving us a chance. It is rather not fair that while the law clearly states that the chairpersons should be rotated yearly they rather chose to hold on to the positions.
“Further we feel that maybe the town clerk (Mr Christopher Dube) and his fellow directors for some reason want to work with just these chairpersons and fear change. Whatever is being hidden we feel it is being put ahead at the expense of service delivery and fairness,” said one of the councillors who preferred anonymity.
Efforts to get a comment from the city’s mayor, Councillor Martin Moyo were fruitless with council officials revealing that he was attending a council strategic planning meeting with councillors and directors in Matopo.
In 2014, at the height of a number of councillors defecting to the then MDC Renewal team, Ward Two Councillor Sithabile Mataka penned a similar motion where she called on council to change council committees, including chairpersons of committees, mayor and deputy mayor.
“I have found it to be fair that council committee (sic) should change so that all councillors of the city could be afforded the opportunity to know how council operate (sic) through its committees. As a ward councillor one is not restricted to one or two fields but to all departments. So by changing committees, we will be getting exposure to all departments of council and that gives us experience.
There are so many benefits that goes with the changing of committees as was indicated by other councillors which I real (sic) consider to be important,” wrote Clr Mataka.
