Lifestyle audit for council officials

THE Government is set to conduct lifestyle audits for Harare City Council officials, amid indications that some of them might have amassed wealth through the sale of State land, Harare Provincial Development Coordinator

Mr Tafadzwa Muguti has said.

The lifestyle audit comes at a time senior managers and MDC councillors at Town House have already been arrested for allegedly abusing their positions to allocate stands to their cronies and girlfriends.

MDC councillors also stand accused of stripping and selling State land to finance their party programmes.

Speaking during a recent meeting with Harare City Council management, Mr Muguti urged the team at council to stop engaging in shady deals.

“It is sad that council officials have been facilitating the illegal sale of State land,” he said. “As Government, we want to know those who have been allocated stands since 2014.

“There will be lifestyle audits for people who amassed a lot of wealth through land sales. There will also be a lifestyle audit for all council employees.”

Zimbabwe National Organisation of Associations and Residents Trust head Mr Shepherd Chikomba hailed the move.

“As residents, we applaud the Government for taking this step towards fighting corruption, this was long overdue,” he said.

“We have been advocating for these lifestyle audits for a long time, maybe the level of corruption will go down.”

Mr Shepherd Shava said their wish as residents was for the exercise to be done in all the councils in Zimbabwe.

The Special Anti-Corruption Unit, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission and police have been fighting tooth and nail to arrest officials implicated in land scams, with the majority of them now answering to cases in the courts.