Norton town council struggles to clean up mess

The situation is worse this time around since the MDC made a clean sweep of practically all urban councils in the 2008 harmonised elections. Documents to hand indicate that Norton Town Council is currently experiencing a sort of tug of war with Chombo who has apparently rejected the councils decision to suspend its CEO for several acts of gross mismanagement and dereliction of duty.
One factor that we must always bear in mind is that although the MDC commands the majority in all urban councils, the majority of the council staff comprises largely people who got into office as a result of their loyalty and allegiance to the outgoing Zanu (PF) regime. Herein lays the problem.
In numerous cases, council staff tends to run the affairs of council in such a manner that they seek to frustrate the newly elected councillors. Perhaps they may even ensure that the new councillors will have little that they can do in relation to possible changes in the way that the affairs of the authority are managed.
In the specific case of Norton town council, a decision was made to send the CEO on forced leave in order to facilitate an investigation into whether or not he was qualified for his job, and the manner that certain matters of council business were being managed or mismanaged.
The report from the investigating committee is emphatic in that although the CEO is adequately qualified for his job, his job performance left a lot to be desired. In fact, the negligent manner in which the CEO undertook his work amounted to dereliction of duty, to the extent that the normal action for council to take would have been to dismiss him from office. But apparently, the CEO has certain forces that are insulating him from such council action.
The Committee of Inquiry that was set up by the Norton Town Council, in accordance with its Terms of Reference, established that:
The council was operating without an asset register;
Cash books were not timeously updated or reconciled with bank statements;
Council investments through CFX could not be corroborated by existing documents;
Only four of the five engines that were to be supplied by a contractor were availed to the council but the fifth one was not according to council specifications, yet the vehicle that had been possessed by council as surety was released to the defaulting contractor;
Numerous council checks had been dishonoured by banks for various reasons and this was costing council a lot of money;
Contrary to the provisions of the Urban Councils Act, councils Final Accounts were not being prepared and audited in time, and this had the tendency to erode councils creditworthiness; and,
Council was operating without by-laws.

These are all very serious acts of mismanagement and dereliction of duty on the part of the CEO. In fact, one wonders what the individual was doing in the office on a daily basis since all of the above constitute the bulk of a council CEOs duties and responsibilities.
This has the tendency of making some of us suspect that the CEO was kept in this position for political rather than for professional reasons by some interests that do not necessarily have the concerns and interests of the people of Norton at heart. This is very unfortunate since in the end it is the ratepayers who suffer from lack of service delivery.