HARARE Mayor Jacob Mafume is livid, expressing his anger in public, over the council's Head of Information Technology, William Mugobogobo for failing to implement the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system four years after its adoption. The mayor took the opportunity of a recent full council meeting at Town House to lambast Mugobogobo and the entire IT department, describing it as "the worst" and responsible for the failure to get its 2024 budget approved by the ministry.
What incensed the mayor was Mugobogobo's nonchalant conduct after the former tried to contact him to get an appraisal on the ERP system implementation progress."My brother, this idea of not returning my calls when l call you will get you into problems very soon. I have been calling you for the past two days.
"You are sitting on a thing (ERP) that has prevented us from getting a budget, and you don't return my calls.
"You think we come here to joke? You think it's not embarrassing that you are the head of IT and we don't have Internet at buildings, we don't have emails, you are running the worst department and you don't return my calls?" charged Mafume.
The absence of the ERP system has resulted in errant council officials fleecing the local authority while communication with the customers is problematic.
"You have caused us immense damage as a council with your department. Our billing is in shambles, we cannot communicate with customers something that a university does on a cellphone.
"I want to know where we are with this thing. l don't want these briefings, there must be a start date when we are starting. When is the ERP getting in?
"You have delayed us for too long on things that we knew you were wrong, you guys were wrong, and l said why do we keep giving back the same people who caused us a problem the job to rescue ourselves from the problem," said the mayor. He indicated that the council was being defamed because of false recommendations by the IT department."We are getting defamed because your department gave us false recommendations you are not finishing the negotiations you are doing nothing and you don't return my calls what's your problem?
"We want to be briefed on what is happening with our ERP and you don't return my calls, you disappear from meetings."
Mugobogobo failed to explain in detail when the ERP system was going to be ready for the council to start functioning well.
Mafume gave him an ultimatum of 24 hours to get the contract of the ERP system required.
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"Can these things go in the next 24 hours?" asked Mafume.
Mugobogobo who seemed lost the time the mayor was asking replied saying, "The instructions for?"
Some councillors seated close to him repeated the question, this is when Mugobogobo confirmed saying, "Yes we can communicate, yes we can."Mafume said the local authority needs to normalise operations within a 50-day timeline.
"So, by that time we want it to be demonstrated we have an ERP system not a suggestion that we have an ERP system," he affirmed.Harare resolved to adopt the ERP system four years ago, but it has failed to take off. The software automates all operations of council and enables paperless and real-time processing.Two months ago, 23 council staff from the finance department were suspended over the matter, which auditors flagged as opening floodgates for financial leakages.
