Shurugwi (New Ziana) – Shurugwi residents are up in arms with the municipality over poor service delivery and alleged mismanagement of funds.
In a petition to the council, which was copied to the Midlands Provincial Minister of State for Devolution, Larry Mavima and other leaders, the residents mainly complained about poor roads and lack of water in the town.
They petitioned the municipality through their representative body, the Shurugwi Residents Association, which also alleged mishandling of council finances.
“We write this petition as combined Shurugwi residents to express our displeasure on poor service delivery by your council with specific reference to the following issues:
“Water provision has been a problem for the past four months despite the fact that we have received good rainfall.
“The state of our roads is deplorable to say the least, this has been exacerbated by the incessant rains we are receiving,” read the petition.
It queried some land deals between the council and some investors, alleging some of these were only benefiting top municipal leaders in contravention of the Urban Councils Act, which provide that proceeds from land disposals should be deployed to capital projects.
“It has come to our attention that council sold a piece of land to MIPF and the proceeds were clandestinely diverted to benefit council management in an underhand deal that openly flouted local government management and corporate government ethics,” the association said.
“You, however, decided to unprocedurally buy luxury vehicles for management which does not benefit the ratepayers in any way except to satiate the unquenchable thirst for luxury, glitz and glamour being exuded at Town House.
“We remain unaware of any agreed and minuted correspondence from previous council deliberations on allocation of funds from the past immediate year(s) budget(s) that could have justified the unsanctioned move to procure offensively luxurious state of the art GD6 SUVs.
“As residents and the business community, we strongly implore you to reverse this dubious move and sell those vehicles and do the proper thing of re-chaneling the proceeds in question to prioritizing ratepayers’ needs and service delivery,” the association demanded.
“We are aware of rampant and unchecked corruption cases taking place at Town House especially in the housing, audit and treasury departments which we condemn with the utmost contempt they deserve and urge you to urgently look into and bring the perpetrators to book before we take it into our own hands.”
New Ziana
