FIVE of the 33 Chitungwiza Municipality councillors and officials picked up for questioning during a meeting, convened in contravention of the Urban Councils Act to replace the acting town clerk after she blocked 2000 offer letters and leases, have been formally arrested on charges of criminal abuse of office and breaching the Act.

The other 27 were released by police after being questioned. The three councillors and two officials formally arrested are: Peter Matiringe Cllr for Ward 10, Richard Chimutsa (Ward 5), Chengetai Nyagondo (Ward 14), David Duma (engineering manager) and Munyaradzi Chizanga (acting finance director).

National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said investigations were still in progress. The five were “assisting police with investigations for criminal abuse of office and violating the Urban Councils Act”, he said.
The meeting was called by a group of MDC-A councillors who have been selling residential stands using backdated offer letters for alleged personal gain.

Acting Town Clerk Mrs Evangelista Machona had on Monday rescinded more than 2 000 offer letters dating back to last year and blocked the issuing of leases, a move prompted by ongoing investigations into their validity.

That in turn caused the group to move swiftly to replace her as acting town clerk with Engineer David Duma. Since everyone was or would be acting, the group figured all that was required was a simple council resolution.

The alleged scam that Mrs Machona blocked was the sale of stands last year, or this year with backdated offer letters, for US dollars with the organising councillors then paying the council in local currency at roughly 1-1 and pocketing the huge difference generated by new exchange rates.

A 200-square-metre residential stand would be sold for US$4 000 but the councillors paid a miserly $4 611,50 in local currency for each stand to the local authority. Calculations show that council could have been prejudiced of over US$8 million in potential revenue.

-Herald