By Paul Nyathi
Perrenially corrupt Municipality of Gwanda councillor for Ward 9 Councillor Thulani Moyo has yet again found himself embroiled in a scam involving illegal sale of stands.
A report to the Town Clerk of Gwanda produced by the Gwanda Residents Association and made available to ZimEye.com, indicates that the councillor who is chairman of the council Housing Committee connived with a representative of a land developer to swindle four women of a total of $14 000.
According to the report the councillor and Alpha Construction, falsified council records to accord the company four stands allegedly belonging to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and sold them outside council regulations to the four unsuspecting women.
Throughout the dealings on the stands, the report indicates that the council Housing and Community Services Department was deliberately and carefully avoided so that the scam would not be detected.
The woman were allegedly made to pay land development fees of a further $1 300 directly to the council Treasury Department in a carefully executed move under the instructions of Alpha Construction who owned thirty six other stands in the same area.
Alpha Construction is owned by aspiring ZANU PF candidate for Chivi South Constituency Jonathan Gapare who owns land in several towns and also runs a hotel in the constituency.
The residents rights group states that it has evidence of at least $7 000 which was transferred between a representative of Alpha Construction and the councillor immediately after the stands were paid for.
In an attempt to cover the matter, the report indicates that Gapare had offered the women alternative stands in Beitbridge, some 200kms away from Gwanda.
Commenting on the matter, councillor Moyo said that the allegations against him are false and attempts at smearing him ahead of the harmonised elections as he is seeking re-election.
“I don’t know how I am said to be involved in this issue,” said councillor Moyo.
“What I know is that I referred one of the ladies to the Housing and Community Services Department more than five times when she came to me looking for a stand after they had sold a family house to build seperate new houses,” he said.
“Alpha Construction are the ones who called me to say they had stands for sale and looking for buyers to which I referred the lady and showed her the area where the stands were.”
“I met with the lady later and she told me she had got the stands from Alpha and they had paid council for the land value before even paying the service fees to Alpha,” he added.
“I don’t see where my name is being brought in on this matter, its just cheap politics meant to tarnish my name because I never received a cent on the deal. I was only helping the ladies to get stands,” said councillor Moyo.
Moyo has on two previous occasions been brought to courts on similar charges after he sold stands to two different people and failed to reimburse them their monies.
Before being a councillor, he served a prison term on other dishonesty cases involving his previous employer.
Shortly after the 2013 elections he was involved in another squabble with Minister Obert Mpofu when he swindled him of thousands of dollars also in property dealings involving commercial stands in Gwanda.
Mayor of Gwanda Councillor Knowledge Ndlovu confirmed the matter and said the issue is in the hands of the police.
“We have done our part as council the case is with the police we hope they will do their part so that everyone is happy at the end of the day,” said Ndlovu.
Gwanda Residents Association Secretary General Bekezela Fuzwayo said that his Association had completed its investigations and handed the matter over to council for actioning.
“We have gathered overwhelming evidence of massive corruption and fraud involving the councillor and probable other council officials and handed this over to the Mayor for action,” he said.
“If council decides to sit on the matter we will certainly take it up with the Minister of Local Government,” he said.
“Our evidence shows that its definitely not only those four stands but a lot more stands that appear to have been illegally sold while they remain hidden in the name of the Defence Forces in council records,” he added.