Chitungwiza councillors have resolved to cut January salaries of the municipality’s management by 30%, while acting town clerk Evangelista Machona has been denied a bonus.

There will also be no salary increment for the first 100 days of the year for council management, owing to poor performance, including dwindling revenues.

This was revealed by Chitungwiza mayor Lovemore Maiko, who told NewsDay that councillors took the decision to hold management to account for poor performance.

“Councillors took the management to task and held it to account for underperformance. The review done in line with the integrated results-based management-proved that the management’s 2021 performance was dismal. The performance was around 27% which is below council’s expectation,” Maiko said in an interview.

“As a result, council resolved that the acting town clerk will not get a bonus for this year, all management from grade 13-16 will have a 30% salary deduction for January 2022 and that there shall be no salary increment for the same grades  for the first 100 days of 2022. The salary can only be reviewed based on performance.”

When contacted for comment yesterday, the acting town clerk said discussions on salary cuts were underway.

“It was only a discussion. I have no ‘head and tail’ of this issue. Those are part of discussions for which I have no conclusion,” Machona said.

Chitungwiza Municipal Workers Union president Ephraim Katsina could not be drawn to comment on the matter, preferring to say: “I cannot say whether this is bad, or good.

“The employer, who is the council, has seen it fit to put that resolution and I respect the resolution.”

In 2020, Machona was implicated in a housing stands scandal.

The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission in November unearthed several cases of corruption in the allocation of housing stands involving management and councillors.

A recent research, conducted by the National Association of Youth Organisations (Nayo), shows that 35% of residents in Chitungwiza were swindled by land barons, losing millions of dollars in the process.

According to Nayo, 69% of residents in the sprawling town were concerned about being defrauded their hard-earned cash by politically-connected land barons while 57% of the residents were concerned about the rise in corruption involving illegal land sales.

-Newsday