Appetite for luxury cars lands Masvingo Town Clerk in court

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According to court papers, the top official at City of Masvingo allegedly authorised the purchase of his condition or service vehicle, a Toyota Prado VX-L instead of a lesser expensive Prado VX 3.0 litre engine version approved by council and parent ministry, the Ministry of Local Government.

The approved type of Prado was valued at US$109 151 while the one that was later acquired cost US$251 798.

On count two, the State alleges that Mukaratirwa misrepresented to City of Masvingo that he had been allocated a Toyota Hilux as his personal vehicle yet it was donated by the African Development Bank (AfDB) for use by workers involved in maintenance of water supply and sanitation infrastructure at council.

Court heard that acting on that misrepresentation, the local authority agreed and went on to facilitate transfer of ownership of the vehicle to accused person.

Mukaratirwa is out of custody and will return to court on August 9, 2024.

Meanwhile, a damning report by the Auditor General (AG) indicates the local authority is the most badly run under the City Councils category.

According to the letter dated November 30, 2021, the Minister of Local Government and Public Works authorised the council to procure a non-locally assembled vehicle at a cost of US$109 151, which translates to ZWL$11.9 million on the date of purchase.

“However, I noted that the council procured this vehicle at a cost of ZWL$27.4 million which translates to US$251 816 (27362400/108.666) using the RBZ mid-rate on that date.

“Council procurement records showed that another local bidder had quoted US$109 900 but was disqualified on the basis that the quote was not in ZWL$. Comparing these quotes on the same base currency showed that the council could have saved US$141 916. This was not in line with the ministerial approval,” the AG’s report said.

The AG warned that such actions risk compromising service delivery.

But in response, council management said the procurement of the Land Cruiser Prado was done after the granting of authority by the Permanent Secretary for Local Government.

“The price of UD$109 151 which was provided to the Minister on application was indicative so that the Minister would have an appreciation of the cost of the vehicle. The proper procurement process was duly followed through competitive bidding and the authorised model of vehicle was procured,” the management said.

They further maintained the funding which was available to procure the vehicle was the local currency; therefore our bidding document requested bidders to bid in local currency which was available.

The report also flagged out the council over a cocktail of other bad governance management that was not responding to audit findings raised by the Internal Auditor following the fact that internal audit reports issued between January and September 2022 revealed that five (5) out of twenty-nine (29) reports were not responded to.

“I was not able to assess whether management implemented all 2022 full council resolutions as I was granted the status for only the first half of the year. My review of this report revealed that management implemented only fourteen (14) out of forty-nine (49) Full Council resolutions,” the AG’s report observed.

The dossier also established that just 56% of the MCC Water was billed.

The deep-seated rot calls for the need of government’s urgent intervention to save the Masvingo citizens from the current maladministration. NewZW