Millions of US dollars generated from billboard advertising and rentals of council-owned properties are reportedly being siphoned for personal use in Harare and Chinhoyi.
This was revealed by Public Accounts Parliamentary Portfolio Committee (PAC) chairperson, Charlton Hwende after visiting Makonde RDC in Lions Den on Tuesday.
The committee is visiting several other local municipalities across the country to discuss a report titled "Value for Money for Local Authorities 2023: Management of Revenue Generating Properties by Local Authorities."
The report, tabled by the Auditor General, examines how local authorities manage revenue collection from properties under local authorities' jurisdiction.
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"So far, we have visited Harare, yesterday (Monday) we were in Chinhoyi at the local authority.
"There were several issues that were cited in the Value for Money Audit Report for the local authorities by the Auditor General, chief among them was the issue of the revenue leakages in council-rented properties.
"With Chinhoyi, the situation is bad. They are unable to, or even unwilling to collect what is due to council. A number of people are occupying council-rented houses, they are not paying," Hwende said, adding that even though the rentals were as little as $20 for two-bedroom houses, but still, tenants were still not paying.
He said there was no willingness on the council's part to recover debt.
"We then discovered that most of the council officials are involved in the issuing of leases, and we suspect that most of them are the ones who are actually holding many of the leases.
"On the sample of houses that we visited in Chinhoyi, we went to about five rented commercial properties and discovered that the shops, the licence, the lease that is issued on a tenant, after the lease is issued, there are about five or six other people there that are renting the next one to the next one before you reach the original owner of the lease. And nothing is coming to the council coffers," added Hwende.
On the billboard issue from Harare to Chinhoyi, it was the same issue, according to the PAC chairperson who revealed that no rentals were being collected from advertisers.
In the report on billboards, some councils allegedly destroyed or tampered with technology systems to revert to manual work and loot, as a new system installed was no longer allowing them to loot funds.
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It was reported that in one month, US$1 million was collected in one month from billboard rentals of a certain council as the system was still functional but after being vandalised by the council workers, the following month realised not even a dollar.
"Evidence also came out that the issue of collusion between councillors and advertising agencies needs to be further investigated.
"We will be recommending the Auditor General to re-look into these issues. Then also, a lack of commercial enterprises that can augment the dwindling revenues from the local authorities.
"It's a major concern in Chinhoyi, there's nothing, no initiative, no plans. In Zvimba, the situation was a little bit different," Hwende highlighted.
