Mahachi – salt in the wound

impressive, despite his academic qualifications. He was suspended and then fired as CEO of Air Zimbabwe in 2005, only a year after his appointment, while his ability as City of Harare Strategist is all around us – potholes, garbage, broken street and traffic lights, water shortages and general deterioration of our capital city’s infrastructure, environment and bank balance.
Chombo said when he reappointed Makwavarara that she had done a good job. We all asked ourselves what that good job was, since Harare has gone from bad to worse under her illegal continued chairmanship. Then she boasted that she managed to pay the workers on time, and the penny dropped – she must be an essential part of the ZanuPF machinery, ensuring that card-holders are employed and paid, using ratepayers’ money!
Doubtless that is the sort of strategy Mahachi was hired for – not that there is any such position as City Strategist in the Urban Councils Act – and we also wonder what Chester Mhende was doing. Residents must guard against being fleeced more and more to support the voracious ruling party machine, with other strategies the new Town Clerk thinks up. The 1000 grasscutters called for only yesterday is a case in point – why can’t the already-employed workers do their job? What are we paying them for?
In fact, town clerks were traditionally lawyers, trained to deal with all the legal issues arising in cities and towns, not strategists. But then Mahachi is not a strategist by training – he’s a chemist. So perhaps there is some chemistry at work, somewhere along the line.
Whatever the case, Harare residents have every reason to review their continued payment of ever-increasing rates to support the machinations of a fired CEO and an ex-data capture clerk. – Stevenson is the Shadow Minister for Local Government, MDC (Mutambara)