Zimbabwe: Zacc Picks Up 3 Kariba Officials

Three Kariba Municipality officials have been picked up for questioning by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) over alleged nepotism in the recruitment of a council nurse and abuse of office in the acquisition of council houses.

The three include acting town clerk, Mr Evans Chinyama (38), suspended director of finance Mr Saratiere Chitenhe (58) and engineering director Ndumiso Nyaningwa.

ZACC has since taken the three to the Kariba Magistrates Court with a request for their remand.

In the first case of abuse of office as a public official, Eng Nyaningwa is jointly charged with town clerk Richard Kamhoti, housing director Godfrey Magijani and finance director Chitenhe who are already on remand over the matter.

Allegations against Nyaningwa, which also apply to the other three senior officials, are that on June 18, 2018 Kariba Municipality held a special council meeting in which the local authority’s pool houses were deemed old, obsolete and unserviceable.

The houses had to be disposed of and Kamhoti, Chitenhe and Magijani expressed interest in the houses in terms of Item 5 of the Housing Policy before recusing themselves from the meeting.

On the day’s agenda was the disposal of the housing units to senior management.

Magijani was, however, allowed to be part of the meeting at some stage where he had to present the disadvantages of having the houses on the roll of council while being occupied by senior management.

He also allegedly did a cost benefit analysis on selling the houses to sitting tenants to reduce the high cost of maintenance.

Based on the presentation, council made Resolution Number C/85/18 allowing Kariba Municipality to dispose of the houses to the current occupants.

The resolution was, however, found to infringe the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act, Chapter 22:23.

The accounting officer, who is the town clerk, has the responsibility to dispose public assets that are obsolete, unserviceable or surplus according to Section 90 of the Act and Section 92(2)(b) states that disposal should be done through public auction or through a public tender.

Section 93, however, prohibits the disposal of the assets to any of its employees, any member of its board or committees.

On May 25, 2020 and on the strength of the resolution, housing director Magijani offered house Number 21 Muchirara Street to town clerk Kamhoti at $858 350, Number 29 to Chitenhe at $941 675 and Number 8 Hibiscus Street to Nyaningwa at $1 million.

Town clerk Kamhoti in turn offered House Number 2 Maruka Avenue to housing director Magijani at $858 350 and he made instalments from July 17, 2020 to April 14, 2021.

Chitenhe paid $515 000 between July 17, 2020 and April 6, 2021 amd Nyaningwa paid $620 000 from July 17, 2020 to September 21, 2021.

The agreement were all signed on July 1, 2020.

On the second case involving Chitenhe and acting town clerk Chinyama, Kariba Municipality alleges that sometime in 2020 a vacant for a State Registered Nurse arose in the health department and the two produced an advertisement for the post.

However, they did not advertise the vacancy in the national press as required by law.

At least four people applied for the position including Ellen Kondowe who is a sister-in-law to Chinyama’s brother.

A date for interviews was set on September 24, 2020 for the four shortlisted candidates, but only Kondowe appeared for the interview and Chinyama cleared the interview to proceed.

Chitenhe then allegedly wrote a letter of appointment on October 26, 2020 and she took up the job offer on December 1 of the same year.

They appeared before Chinhoyi magistrate who granted them 20 000 bail.

By The Herald.