‘Voluntary workers’ bleed council

AN internal audit has exposed over 180 “voluntary workers” who were bleeding Marondera Municipality amid reports that they were each claiming $60 per day for doing menial jobs such as guarding communal boreholes and digging trenches.

This was revealed in a recent council audit committee report.

The auditors noted several discrepancies where at some sites five people were said to be guarding a single borehole, amid reports that the “guards” were seconded by mostly MDC Alliance councillors.

Marondera town has 11 MDC Alliance councillors and one for Zanu PF.

It has emerged that each of the councillors seconded at least 15 workers to perform paid voluntary work.

“Audit was concerned with the number of voluntary workers which was sky rocketing,” read part of the report.

“The concern was that a single borehole was being manned by five people and to some extent people were attending malfunctioning boreholes. Audit cited loss of revenue.”

Council early this year drilled 16 boreholes using devolution funds to ease water challenges, with five of them malfunctioning.

According to the audit report, a number of voluntary workers were not reporting for duty but claimed daily allowances.

“The audit manager said he received reports from the finance committee chairperson that there were some volunteers who were being paid yet they were not at work. The chairperson said internal audit should do the investigations and report accordingly,” read the report.

The local authority is currently operating on a shoestring budget after revenue flows were affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in revenue collection falling by 50%.