Residents redflag Chitown council over master plan

By TSITSI MASHIRI/ ALBERT MASAKA 

CHITUNGWIZA residents are irked with the opaque manner in which the municipality has handled the master plan process, which they fear was derailing the crafting of the town’s first ever development blueprint and may compromise its quality in the end.

This follows reports that negotiations with another consultancy company which were reported to be initially successful, had again broken down. 

The company Ncube and Burrow had had initially won in the bid process before the cash-strapped municipality opted to engage Prophet Walter Magaya’ s Wistmer Investments after he had dangled an offer to fund the master plan.

Chitungwiza Manyame Residents Association leader, Marvellous Kumalo called for heads to roll at the municipality.

“The issue of the Chitungwiza master plan seems to be a sensitive one. How come after the municipality had initially settled for an unsolicited bidder in the name of Wistmer Investments, they later rescinded that resolution?

“The same council has now opted for a solicited bid by Ncube and Burrow without having enough funds for the consultants’ fees.

 “It seems someone along the line is sabotaging the master plan issue. Heads must roll if our management and councillors are not capable of delivering a master plan for the town.

“How much time do they need to come up with a master plan?”  Kumalo said.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa in February ordered all 92 local authorities to come up with master plans by June 30 in a move aimed at curbing a spike of illegal settlements around the country.

Chitungwiza is among a handful of councils that have failed to meet the June 30 deadline for the submission of master plans.

The municipality has since asked for an extension to which the government acceded to.

The cash-strapped council that is struggling to fund the master plan recently rejected an offer by Prophet Walter Magaya’s Wistmer Investments to fund the blueprint, whose costs were initially pegged at US$600 000.

The move has divided councillors, council officials and residents with a councillor who is in the real estate business going to the extent of putting prayer points for acting town clerk Japson Nemuseso as part of the agenda for his ward’s consultative meeting.

In making that decision, the council   resolved to use its own  resources  to re-engage the consultants to prepare the master plan the councillors were advised by Nemuseso that the consultant had agreed to lower their fees to US$180 000.

However, the negotiations with the consultancy that were initially reported to be successful, later broke down when consultants offered a 20% discount on their bid price, an amount which Chitungwiza could not afford.  

Our investigations revealed that following this development, most councillors were not happy with the manner in which Nemuseso was handling the issue.

“We are not going anyway with him, we have completely lost trust in him and if we do not do anything soon we will all be compromised. Others said they were not privy to the latest developments.

 “I am not sure whether no efforts were made to talk to him as the latest I heard was that he should be approached, if he insists, we had to approach  the ministry since they were willing
 to find us an alternative.  

Maybe the one you are talking about was recommended by the ministry.”  However, Dungwiza News is reliably informed that the council has since written a letter requesting the Local Government and Public Works Ministry to deploy a consultant who can assist given the circumstances.

The source added that the ministry is seized with the matter given that Chitungwiza has already failed to deadline.

Several efforts to get a comment from the council were fruitless. Initially, Chitungwiza Public Relations officer Tafadzwa Kachiko expressed ignorance on the latest developments before referring all questions to Nemuseso.

Nemuseso failed to respond to written questions send to him via sms on Wednesday and later referred back all questions to Kachiko who did not respond at the time of going to print