Auditors descend on Masvingo municipality

The audit comes at a time when the council and its entire workforce are embroiled in a salary dispute thathas seen half of the local authority’s fleet being attached by the messenger of court.

The fleet has been gathering dust at the messenger of court’s premises for over a year now.

Sources within the council said the auditors from minister Ignatius Chombo’s ministry have also roped in members of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) to assist them.

“The auditors are here and are perusing files for every worker in an effort to find out if the council has ghost workers,” said the source.

A member of the probe team who declined to be named said they were keen to find out why council was failing to pay its workers on time and to end the long salary dispute.

“It is true that within our team are some people from the president’s office who are assisting us,” said a member of the probe team.

“We want to establish the revenue inflows into council coffers and how money has been used by the council since 2009,”he added.

It also emerged that Masvingo City Council books have not been audited since the dollarization of the economy – in contravention of normal audit procedures expected from a public entity.

Workers in the council have welcomed the move arguing that it will unravel all financial transactions that we done clandestinely.

Town Clerk Adolf Gusha confirmed that auditors were at the civic centre to look into council books, but would give no details.

Masvingo city council has 10 councillors six from the MDC-T and four from Zanu (PF). The previous council had nine MDC-T Councillors and one from Zanu (PF).

The current council came under heavy attack this year from rate payers when it wanted to advance loans of $55,000 each to head of department and the mayor to purchase vehicles.

Zanu (PF) councillors objected to the move and have since petitioned Chombo to stop the loan facility.