Trust Freddy — Former CCC leader Nelson Chamisa directed Harare city councillors to fast-track regularisation of housing cooperatives in the run up to the 2023 harmonised elections, in a bid to increase his urban vote and counter President Mnangagwa's title deed scheme, the Commission of Inquiry into Harare City Council heard on Monday.
During that time, only cooperatives of CCC aligned leaders were regularised, while those belonging to Zanu PF members were not.
Cllr Blessing Duma (CCC), the current chairperson of the Harare City Council's Audit Committee, exposed the political bias of the regularisation programme that saw over 340 cooperatives being formalised ahead of the August elections last year.
Cllr Duma told the commission that Mr Chamisa gave them a directive to expedite the regularisation programme. The meeting where they received this instruction took place at the then CCC offices in Mabelreign.
Cllr Duma, who was the Environment chairperson, Kudzi Kadzombe, Denford Ngadziore, and Mayor Jacob Mafume attended the meeting.
Cllr Duma only acknowledged this after being presented with an audio recording in which he instructed fellow councillors to swiftly implement the regularisation policy, as directed by Mr Chamisa.
"The instruction for regularisation came from president Chamisa. You can confirm this with Denford, Kudzie, Gotora, and Mayor Mafume."
"We were given a directive to regularise every settlement in Harare, just as the President of the country was issuing title deeds...," Cllr Duma said in an audio that was played before the commission.
In the very same audio, Cllr Duma also advised his fellow councillors that regularisation was supposed to be done on open spaces.
The latest revelation comes amid yet another exposé where Harare CCC councillors went on a spree of invading and parcelling out more than 5 000 illegal plots ahead of last year's harmonised elections, as they had done in previous elections.
At least 349 illegal housing cooperatives were hurriedly regularised during the same period according to evidence submitted to the commission last week.
After being grilled for over two hours, Clr Duma revealed that only cooperatives with well-known members affiliated with Zanu PF were targeted for demolition and denied regularisation, while those with prominent CCC members were spared and granted regularisation.
Councillor Duma cited the Paddocks area in Crowborough as a prime example, where a section occupied by war veterans from Zanu PF was not regularised, whereas an adjacent area illegally occupied by CCC members was granted regularisation.
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It also emerged yesterday that council committees were constituted without qualifications, which was a prerequisite.
Such random appointments resulted in Cllr Duma, a mere journalist with no accounting background leading the Audit Committee.
When questioned about why he accepted the task despite being aware of his inability to interpret complex financial statements, Cllr Duma said his appointment was in line with the Constitution, which states that even a Grade 1 dropout could chair any portfolio.
However, Retired Justice Mafios Cheda questioned the rationale behind Cllr Duma leading the committee when he lacked accounting while his deputy, had an accounting background.
Cllr Duma responded that he only discovered his deputy's accounting background this year, and it was not considered during the selection process.
Cllr Duma also described the Harare City Council as a dead entity that needed to be resurrected.
"My only plea to this commission is to assist us in resurrecting Harare City Council. It is dead and needs to be resurrected, not revived, because it's dead," he said.
