TENDAI BHEBE IN BULAWAYO
Bulawayo residents are resisting a proposal by the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to splurge more than ZWL$25m towards the construction of a mansion for the city’s mayor in Selbourne Park, Business Times can report.
Instead, residents are pushing council to renovate its double-storey property in Burnside ,which was identified as the official mayoral residence.
The City of Bulawayo mayor, Solomon Mguni, currently stays in the high density suburb of Nkulumane.
“…We are totally against the construction of the mayor’s house,” the chairman of the Bulawayo United Residents Association Winos Dube told Business Times.
He added: “It is uncalled for Bulawayo to come up with a mansion. We are really surprised and to make matters worse , we are talking of ZWL$25m to come up with a mayoral mansion which we were never told that in the budget for 2021.
“We are concurring with our colleagues to say this was never budgeted for. Where did they get the money to come up with the mayoral mansion when they are failing to give us the major services that are needed. Sewer bursts are the order of the day in the city. That money should be channelled to us, improving the health systems.”
Emmanuel Ndlovu, the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA) coordinator wrote a letter to the Minister of Local Government, July Moyo, seeking reversal of the decision by the local authority to build the mansion as per the full council meeting held on August 3, 2021 as the mansion was not included in the 2021 budget.
“The decision by the local authority to divert the funds from other financial accounts is a bad financial practice that is against tenets of good corporate governance as it gives room for abuse of funds by public institutions. BPRA notes with concern that this act goes against guidelines in the Public Finance Management Act section 47 read concurrently with section 50 as capital projects of that amount should be budgeted for and go through all budget processes that include public scrutiny via budget consultations,” part of the letter reads.
Ndlovu said BCC should propose the project in 2022 budget and follow the due procedure to consult residents and other key stakeholders “instead of using the back door approach”.
“BPRA is also concerned on the level of negligence by the BCC to consider constructing a new mansion instead of renovating an earlier identified house located in Burnside low density suburb.
Contacted for a comment, BCC Town Clerk, Christopher Dube was adamant the mansion would be built.
“Talk to the councillors there is nothing much I would say. It’s a very straight forward issue. We are building the Mayor’s house that’s all,” he said.
