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By Mellisa Gombe
The Zimbabwe Anti -Corruption Commission (ZACC) arrested three Zvishavane Town Council officials for allegedly awarding a contract to a private company without due process and flouting tender procedures recently.
In a statement, ZACC Spokesperson Commissioner John Makamure said the trio comprising of Town Secretary Tinoda Mukutu (53), Housing Director Nhlanhla Ngwenya (44) and Town Engineer Dominic Mapwashike (44) reportedly flouted the tender procedure by awarding the same contract twice to a company that had failed to fulfil the terms of the first contract.
They allegedly renewed the agreement with JM Construction without a council resolution and have already appeared in court.
Commissioner Makamure said that sometime in 2016, Zvishavane Town Council entered into a partnership agreement with Monitor Enterprises trading as JM Conctruction, a land developing company for the servicing of 27 Central Business District extension stands in Zvishavane valued US$2 772 258-31.
“JM Construction won the Partnership Agreement after competing in a tender process that was flighted by the Town Council.
“However, the two years partnership time frame lapsed before JM Construction had completed the agreement works which led to the termination of the Partnership Agreement by the Town Council in October 2018.”
“Instead of inviting new bids to continue with servicing of the stands after the termination of the agreement with JM Construction, on December 17, 2019, the trio secretly negotiated with JM Construction again to continue with the contract,” he said.
According to the corruption watchdog, a new agreement with new conditions was drawn between the two for the continued servicing of the 27 stands without a council resolution.
This was also done without going through the standard tender process thus leading to their arrest. Nhau/Indaba
