Staff Reporter
Councillors and officials at the scandal hit Municipality of Gwanda are reportedly frantically pushing residents to hurriedly take up prepaid water metres in order for them to receive a kick back agreed on with a supplier.
Very reliable sources close to the council revealed to Zimeye.com that some councillors and council officials in the council procurement committee entered into an agreement with the supplier to receive a 20% kick back for every metre supplied. The metres believed to be costing about $400 each will be paid by council through advance payments from residents wishing to have them.
The sources claim that the supplier has already been awarded the tender to supply the metres, which have already been sourced for council from South Africa.
The council is said to have flighted a tender for the supply of 100 pilot project prepaid metres to be paid for by World Vision under the Water And Sanitation Hygiene (WASH) programme.
Adjudication for the tender was done and the tender awarded to the rightful supplier guided by World Vision leaving out the council’s “preferred” supplier whose price was a lot higher.
The sources revealed that council however went further and awarded the losing tenderer another tender for an initial 100 metres with a provision to supply more as and when demanded.
According to the sources the 20% feed back influenced the agreement.
In a bid to fast trek the deal through, councillors are reported to have gone out on a massive invitation for residents to take up the metres. According to the sources, over 600 residents have since registered with the councillors for the prepaid metres.
Mayor Knowmore Ndhlovu could not immediately be reached for a comment on the matter. However, media reported this week that one of the councillors who was caught up in a stands allocation scandal threatened to expose other councillors’ corrupt activities if his corruption is investigated.