The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube Municipal Reporter
BULAWAYO deputy mayor Councillor Gift Banda has been accused of interfering in the recruitment of community cleaning groups in his Ward 5 and barring people aligned to Zanu-PF from being employed. It is also alleged that community leaders purporting to be aligned to Clr Banda had gone further to demand bribes from anyone interested in joining the scheme.
The community cleaning groups scheme was introduced by the Bulawayo City Council to ease the workload on council employees by engaging residents to clean trenches in their wards and pick litter.
They receive $200 a month.
Clr Banda, however, dismissed the claims alleging that those who were complaining were a few individuals who did not even attend ward feedback meetings but wanted to cause confusion in the scheme.
In the latest developments, residents from Four Winds — which falls under Clr Banda’s ward — last Tuesday besieged the Sunday News offices, accusing Clr Banda of both corruptly handling the matter and also politicising it.
They alleged that while it would have been expected that Four Winds residents be employed to clear the trenches in their suburb, the councillor instead only employed people from Morningside, who they claimed were members of the opposition MDC-T.
Ward 5 covers; Hillside, Whitecairns, Eloana, Four Winds, Newton, Morningside, Greenhill, Hillcrest, Famona, Suburbs Portion, Bradfield, Centenary Park, and a portion of Burnside.
“It is surprising that the whole 20 of the people employed were people from Morningside, a certain Mr Sakala called us for some meeting to announce the names of those that had been employed, he was not only arrogant but even spelled out that they did not want anyone from Zanu-PF.
“What surprised us is that Clr Banda is not there as an MDC-T member but is there as a councillor. If his emissaries say people from Zanu-PF are not supposed to be included in those groups it really baffles the mind. Besides, what proof do they have that we are members of Zanu-PF, we are just Zimbabweans,” said Mr Camen Sibanda.
The residents further claimed some of them were being asked to pay bribes to be included in the scheme, which they felt was unfair since this was a community project.
“There was a near-demonstration last week with one of the residents alleging he had paid Mr Sakala $30 to be included in the scheme but his name had been unceremoniously omitted, however the chaos started when Mr Sakala claimed he would look into the issue.
“However, what pains me the most is that we stay in Four Winds but we will have people from Morningside coming to work in our suburb, there is no democracy at all and further we have tried engaging Clr Banda but it seems he doesn’t want anything to do with us. Our warning to him however, is that we will not allow these people to work in our suburbs until there is transparency in the exercise,” Ms Pretty Magutshwa.
Another resident accused Clr Banda of failing to run the ward accusing him of making unilateral decisions and further having a few individuals aligned to the MDC-T who he worked with at the expense of the entire ward.
“We have been trying to meet him over this matter but we are given all sorts of excuses, right now we were told he is in Harare, council officials at the Tower Block said they cannot entertain us at all.
“Some officials however told us that this programme should be done on a rotational basis but what’s shocking is that we have the same individuals being employed month-in month-out, everything about this matter does not seem right,” said Mr Ashford Tembo.
Contacted for comment, Clr Banda dismissed the claims alleging that those who were complaining were a few individuals who did not even attend ward feedback meetings.
He also denied the claims that he was employing the residents according to party lines saying he did not even deal with the recruitment but this was being conducted by community leaders and seconded by the community itself.
“I honestly do not know these people, I think it’s unfair for them to make all these accusations, they say for themselves that I did not handle this recruitment exercise but they go on to accuse me of employing according to party lines.
“What I am sure about is that these people do not even attend ward feedback meetings because if they did they wouldn’t be rushing to the media to air their grievances. If they came to me or attended these meetings regularly they would know the procedure, besides we are talking of just 20 jobs,” said Clr Banda.
He said the process was done on a rotational basis to cater for the largest number possible of youths who were unemployed in the ward.
“I believe their complaint is just self-explanatory, they are simply worried about nothing. My advice is that they simply should attend ward feedback meetings where such matters are handled. If they have a problem with a certain community leader they should use the right channels to air their complaints so they can be handled and resolved,” said the deputy mayor.
This is not the first time that BCC has been locked in a wrangle with the engagement of community groups. In 2011 councillors were left with egg on face when their attempt to bar community sweepers purported to be from Zanu-PF was declared null and void by the Bulawayo High Court.
