BCC top officials in ward retention fund scam

BULAWAYO City Council top officials have been accused of stifling development in the city after it emerged that nine wards have not received ward retention funds since 2016.

This comes despite the local authority noting every year in their annual budget presentations that the mandatory development fund was being religiously released to every ward yearly. Both former councillors and those in office have corroborated that officials were frustrating their efforts of accessing the fund, with some of the councillors claiming that they had to submit their projects more than twice after the officials claimed to have misplaced the said project lists.

The fund was first mooted in the 2015 budget outreach programme where council resolved to be funding projects that were decided by the ward under the leadership of their elected councillor. Funding for the projects was to be tied to what each ward contributed to council’s coffers as a means of encouraging residents to pay their bills. The receipts into the fund are three percent of all cash received from payment of services billed to ward residents.

According to the latest council report wards 3, 5, 11, 12, 21, 23, 24, 27 and 28 had never been allocated the money since the fund’s inception in 2016. In other wards just a fraction of the funds had been released with two wards (15 and 22) having surprisingly surpassed their allocations and now at minus.

Residents through the Bulawayo Progressive Residents’ Association (BPRA) have raised alarm over the matter and have written a letter to the local authority demanding an immediate audit of the fund. The residents said it did not make any sense for the local authority to just sit on the fund as it continued to lose its value.

“BPRA notes with concern after having analysed the Full Council minutes of 6 February 2019 that there are wards that have not yet accessed and utilised the three percent retention funds meant to develop initiatives in the wards. We are deeply concerned by the fact that the retention funds have lost their purchasing power as a result of the country’s runaway inflation. Every month Bulawayo City Council gains a dollar but it loses its buying power with it being kept in council coffers for no logical explanation. BPRA is furthermore concerned by the failure to utilise funds while residents are facing quality and adequate service delivery challenges such as water and sanitation,” reads part of the letter from the residents.

The city’s Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube, during an emergency financial performance review meeting held at the Large City Hall last Wednesday, said the council was in the process of coming up with a detailed report on the matter.

Contacted for comment on Friday, Mr Dube said council was still in the process of giving a detailed response on the matter, revealing that various council departments were coming up with reports on what they were doing under this fund.

“During budget review meeting I responded to that where I told residents that we had received the request from the residents’ association and our departments are working on a detailed response. If it was not for the holiday I am sure we would have worked on the response but I am expecting it any minute from now from my management.

“I would like to call on the residents to be patient as we work on this report, you should appreciate that we are dealing with various departments here and I cannot just come up with the report single handedly but I must assure you that the detailed report will be available latest on Monday (tomorrow),” said the Town Clerk.

BPRA acting co-ordinator Mr Emmanuel Ndlovu said the Town Clerk had invited them to their office so as to reach common ground on the matter but this had hit a brick wall as council officials failed to give relevant answers.

“We now feel the meeting was just to silence us because they did not give us any answers, they beat about the bush, instead asking us what exactly we wanted to know regarding the fund, which was surprising as our letter was clear on all our demands. Surprisingly this fund was not introduced by us residents but it is them as a local authority who introduced it, but they are now not clear on how the fund is being disbursed,” said Mr Ndlovu.

Sunday News managed to talk to some former councillors and those in office who said council officials were frustrating efforts to release the money.

“I remember we had a meeting with residents to identify projects which we could do. The residents’ chairperson Mr Abednico Moyo then took the list to council. I started making follow-ups on the matter and I was being told various reasons for the delay, then suddenly I was told our list was missing.

“I then resubmitted the list but for one reason or another they kept on dilly-dallying until our terms in office came to an end in 2018. It is surprising that I am no longer serving as councillor but still nothing has been released, I now believe that this fund will not be released at all,” said former ward two councillor, Sithabile Mataka.

Another former councillor, who spoke on condition of anonymity claimed that initially they were told that the fund had to be registered then they were later told the delay in the release of the funds was mainly a procurement matter.

A serving councillor who is also affected claimed that the problem was that they did not fully control the fund but it was under the jurisdiction of Mr Dube and Mr Kimpton Ndimande, the Finance Director.

“Councillors are just the faces of the fund, we do not even manage it, yes, residents are quick to blame us as we are the ones who face them but the problem is with management. We have tried to get answers but no one seems to be interested,” said the councillor.