By A Correspondent| The Harare City Council is reeling from a devastating corruption scandal that has left residents outraged with employees on the verge of rioting. At the centre of the storm is the Town Clerk Hosiah Chisango who pockets a staggering $30,000 monthly salary, plus an array of lavish allowances that have since been revealed to this publication.

The Mayor, Jacob Mafume has of late been under fire for attempting to uncover the executive salaries, his efforts have been thwarted by the powerful Deputy Town Clerk Matthew Marara and Acting Human Capital Manager Bosman Matengarufu who are also beneficiaries of the bloated secret payroll. The little Mafume managed to uncover was the shocking $30,000 monthly salary and the executive’s $1 million splurge on vehicles that could have turned the Capital into a world class city had it been channeled towards service delivery.

Investigations by this publication have established that Chisango also gets the following, a holiday allowance of $19,000, entertainment allowance, clothing allowance, and even school fees for his children. Other directors are also raking in slightly lower allowances while employees struggle to make ends meet as they earn a mere $112 Nostro and 6000 ZiG which is currently unpaid.

There are calls for the Zimbabwe Anti Corruption Commission (ZACC )to vet the Town Clerk’s nostro accounts in order to reveal a web of deceit and corruption “that will shock the nation”. “We’re sitting on a powder keg, and it’s only a matter of time before ZACC discovers how much is in their accounts and all it blows up,I tell you, if employees from Grade 7 to 16 who by-the -way haven’t received their January salaries see what Matengarufu is hiding from the Mayor, I tell you, they will come and riot here at Town House without even consulting unions ,” warned a senior council staffer.

The situation in Harare is already dire, with no diesel for service delivery , no water, blockages are common, no drugs, and solid waste is everywhere while employees are now absenteeing from work due to transport costs. Channeling Chisango’s one month’s salary towards council’s coffers would be enough to pay all employees’ salaries in full and solve nearly half of the residents’ problems. “It’s time for us to take a stand and demand accountability, we are not slaves,” said the staffer. “We can’t let them continue to loot and pillage while we suffer, the Commission of Inquiry is trying but ZACC must act now, or risk being complicit in council’s corruption and when we get to that stage, protests and demonstrations are inevitable because the Mayor can’t fight this battle alone, the executive is too powerful and willing to bribe or kill in order to keep milking Councill of millions at the expense of the employees and residents”.