Tafara Chibanda
Harare City Council Human Resources Committee Chairperson, Councillor George Mujajati has exposed a web of corruption and abuse of power within the authority.
Appearing before a Commission of Inquiry into the governance of Harare, Mujajati revealed that councillors and officials illegally allocated stands to favoured individuals, exploiting vulnerable homeowners and benefiting financially from land regularisation programs.
“The regularisation program was hijacked by councillors and officials for personal gain.
“They sold stands to desperate home seekers, often at inflated prices, and in some cases, sold the same stand to multiple buyers.”
Mujajati said that the homeless are the most vulnerable.
“When you are homeless, you are very vulnerable, and when you are told that you have a piece of land where you can occupy and it is coming from an official who is supposed to be in council or a more still recognised councillor, they end up believing that they are getting land.
“There could be double sales, and right now, if you go there, you would find that in my ward, for example, there is an area that was regularised.
“There are two contesting cooperatives that were supposed to benefit from that area.
“So right now, it depends on who is going to be favoured by the councillor or by the official to get that regularized piece of land,” he said.
He also implicated Town Clerk, Engineer Hosiah Chisango, in the scandal, citing his role in appointing an executive assistant, Matthew Marara, without ministerial approval. Mujajati expressed concerns about the lack of accountability within the council.
“There is a struggle for power and control, which is natural, but they would not respect the local government board in terms of authorization,” he said.
“It is widespread, and I would be very interested to see what we would get if we were to get a real audit, a real investigation.”
However, he emphasized that this happened before he got into the office.
He said the investigation would come up with very interesting results.