HARARE The Harare City Council has been forced to shelve a human resources audit that was scheduled to start last week after Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo Councillors who have been preparing to oversee the exercise were shocked when they were told in the last minute that the audit had been temporarily shelved.
One councillor who declined to be named described the decision to shelve the audit as a direct interference in the function of the council by the local government ministry.
We dont understand why this audit had to be stopped. As councillors we should be entitled to do our oversight role over all issues with regards to council operations, said the councillor.
The councillors suspect that there are many unqualified people on the councils payroll employed by former commissioners who ran the affairs of the council before new councillors came on board after the 2008 elections.
Human resources audit committee chairperson councillor Panganai Charumbira said the exercise had to be stopped forthwith following a letter to the mayor from Chombo.
Minister Chombo wanted the council to engage external companies like Deloitte and Touch to do the audit but our argument is that council does not have the money, said Charumbira.
But Mayor Masunda said there were some people within council who had misrepresented information to the ministry leading them to believe that the exercise was a witch-hunt targeting Zanu (PF) supporters.
The human resources audit has been temporarily shelved after the minister (Chombo) and officials from his ministry mistook it to be a witch-hunt exercise by MDC councillors to weed out Zanu (PF) supporters, said Masunda, adding that exercise was targeting all departments within the Harare City Council.
Masunda said he had a meeting with the councillors and they had agreed to postpone the exercise in order to come up with a clear modus operandi.
All the councillors are not human resources experts and this is where we have to come up with a clear methodology on how the audit should be carried out. The councillors should remain with their oversight role, said the mayor, adding that he also had a meeting with Chombo who later agreed that the audit should go ahead.
Chombo was not available for comment on the matter.
The Harare City Council has more than eight departments employing more than 10 500 workers.
Post published in: News