A SHOWDOWN is brewing between management and concillors in Solwezi in North-Western Province over disbursement of K30 million ward development fund, a Times investigation has revealed.

The row, which has seen some concillors abandoning their wards to camp at the council guesthouse awaiting the funds, has arisen after Kansanshi Mine recently paid close to K2billion for its plots.

The investigation can reveal that whereas councillors are allegedly demanding money for projects in their wards, management is not keen before civic leaders provide answers to an audit.

Following the glaring irregularities in the management of previous funds, management is sticking to the fund's guidelines asking councilors to identify projects in their wards to be funded.

Town Clerk, Jim Zya could not comment, referring all queries to Mayor, Peter Kikatula, who said concillors would go ahead with the disbursement of ward development fund for development of wards.

Mr Kikatula said councillors had rejected an audit report, which they believed was done in bad faith by management to paint the concillors in bad light and block the release of funds.

"We are yet to disburse the ward development fund, but we are going ahead; we have rejected the audit report as it was done in bad faith; management do not want to release the money," he said.

He denounced the North-Western Council of Elders Association for its attempts to block the release of the fund, labeling it as an opposition grouping out to see the council fail.

"The council of elders just want see us fail so that come next year, they stand for elections saying we failed; the council of elders should stop interference and let us do our work," Mayor Kikatla said.

But, council of elders' interim chairperson, Lucas Chikoti, a former Kabompo East UPND Member of Parliament and now a prominent Solwezi businessexecutive, said they were above politics.

"We are for development; we want the ward development fund to go to projects; let the concillors identify projects and leave the rest to the tender committee; what we are against is cash going to councillors," Mr Chikoti said.

He said the last disbursement saw some councillors giving money to contractors some of whom disappeared without doing the works.