By Flata Kavinga
Municipality of Redcliff Town Clerk, Gilson Chakauya, has issued a stern warning that disciplinary action will be taken against council staff implicated in the mismanagement of council-owned two-roomed houses in Torwood suburb, where tenants have allegedly defaulted on paying council bills for years.
Speaking during a full council meeting this week, Chakauya said the local authority would soon embark on a clean-up exercise to address widespread irregularities in the collection of rentals and service charges and if there are any council employees involved, they will face the consequences.
“We are going to clean up the area. We are going to clean up those sections. We are also going to clean up staff. Heads will roll this time, Your Worship,” said Chakauya. “We have no time for people who do not want to fulfill their mandate. Those who don’t deserve to work here must go.”
The Town Clerk said the council could no longer tolerate repeated discussions on the same issue, noting that investigations had revealed possible collusion between council staff and some tenants, resulting in revenue leakages.
“We cannot keep talking about the same issue for two years. It’s unacceptable,” he said. “There is a lot of collusion happening and we really need to clean up. We have already started, and we are not going to look at faces. Even councillors who own multiple houses will not be spared.”
Chakauya added that the council was giving itself until the end of November to regularise occupancy of the houses and recover lost revenue, including dealing with both legal and illegal tenants.
The matter was raised by Finance Committee Chairperson and Ward 9 Councillor Blessing Mutero, who expressed concern that council was losing significant revenue due to non-payment of bills by tenants living in the two-roomed houses.
“As council, we are losing a lot of money due to non-payment of service charges from the two-roomed houses in Torwood,” said Cllr Mutero. “We spoke about this last year, requesting a list of the houses and their occupants, but to date, there has been no progress. These houses are no longer habitable and not being maintained.”
Ward 1 Councillor Christine Sigauke also called for an audit to establish the ownership of the houses, accusing some landlords of collecting rent from tenants but failing to remit payments to council.
“These houses are occupied by tenants who pay their landlords. From where then do they get the money to settle council bills? We need an audit on the houses to establish the owners,” she said.
Chakauya vowed that the clean-up operation would expose and deal with all forms of fraud and collusion affecting council finances.
“We are trying to clean up the area, particularly to address fraud in housing and finance. We lose out as an authority, but we are working flat out on this one,” he said.
The Municipality of Redcliff has been struggling to recover service charges from several council-owned properties, a challenge that continues to strain its revenue collection and service delivery efforts.
