By A Correspondent| Explosive new details have revealed how suspended Harare Town Clerk Hosea Chisango and other senior officials, have transformed the local council into a criminal enterprise, manipulating departments, bribing investigators, and looting public funds with brazen impunity.
At the heart of the scandal is the shadowy return of disgraced officials, Newly Appointed Acting Director of Urban Planning Samuel Nyabeza, Newly appointed Security Manager Obeylaw Moyo, Chief Surveyor Munyaradzi Bowa, self-appointed Executive Assistant to the Town Clerk Matthew Marara, Principal Housing Planner Edgar Dzehonye, Director of Housing Addmore Nhekairo, and Marketing Head Collen Tongoona, all reinstated without council resolutions or legal ratification, despite facing suspensions, criminal charges, and allegations of fleecing millions from council coffers.
In 2023 Chisango “bounced back” by sheer force of intimidation, and orchestrated the reinstatement of the rogue officials. Tongoona, Nyabeza, Bowa, Dzehonye, and Nhekairo who were implicated in land fraud and embezzlement were quietly returned to their posts even as their criminal cases remain active. Marara, who had previously resigned under a cloud of corruption allegations, now operates as the Town Clerk’s unvetted right-hand man, while Tongoona who was on the run from authorities, was rewarded with a fictitious role as head of Marketing in the Housing Department after fleeing the Metropolitan Police Department . The “recycled cartel” has been strategically positioned to control cash-rich departments, particularly the markets, where daily cash collections running into thousands of dollars are siphoned, shared among the group, and never declared. The scale of their audacity is staggering. Tongoona, now embedded in the Housing Department oversees an eyesore of informal market stalls and illegal land allocations, funneling cash into a parallel system that bypasses official audits.
Chisango and Marara who gained infamy for fiercely opposing the adoption of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, a software designed to automate financial processes and eliminate cash handling exposes their fear of losing this daily cash cow. “They’ve sabotaged the ERP for years because automation would end their illicit revenue streams,” a senior IT official revealed. “Every day without it, they steal with impunity, Doink (Mayor Jacob Mafume) tried to intervene but he is a dwarf compared to these rich directors .”
Meanwhile, Bozman Matengarufu, the recently deposed Acting Human Capital Director, allegedly continues to suppress whistleblowers and protect a secret payroll draining $30,000 monthly to Chisango, Marara, and allies. Despite holding a temporary role, Matengarufu was aggressively lobbying to fast-track the appointment of a substantive Finance Director a position of immense influence over council funds. Insiders claim Matengarufu, in cahoots with Chisango, sought to bypass standard recruitment stages to handpick a candidate aligned with their interests. “They wanted to ram through their preferred candidate without scrutiny,” a senior official disclosed. “Matengarufu, as an acting Human Capital manager, has no authority to exclusively drive such a critical appointment, but he was exploiting his position to entrench their cabal.” The rushed process, critics argue, was designed to install a pliant Finance Director who would greenlight dubious expenditures and obscure financial trails linked to land scandals.
To further add to the chaos, when his rotational tenure ended, the embittered Matengarufu launched a scorched earth campaign, accusing the mayor of colluding in corruption and even fabricating an outlandish claim under oath before a Commission chaired by Justice Maphios Cheda that he had been “poisoned” by rivals. Investigators, however, have found no evidence to support his allegations, with one insider dismissing it as “the tantrum of a man denied his bribe.” To compound the hypocrisy, the deposed manager has allegedly been paying himself exorbitant sums equivalent to a substantive director’s salary while in the acting role, flouting council financial protocols and further draining public coffers.
Concerns have also been raised on the deliberate dismantling of the Department of Works. It has emerged that it was a key tactic to neuter accountability. Director Engineer Zvenyika Chawatama, a strict disciplinarian renowned for his zero-tolerance stance on graft, was stripped of his authority and relegated to trivial tasks like pothole patching. Meanwhile, Nyabeza, a figure entangled in multiple pending court cases linked to land fraud was handed control of the Urban Planning Department. Insiders confirm this was a calculated move to sideline Chawatama, whose integrity posed a threat to the cabal. “Nyabeza’s promotion is a reward for loyalty,” a source alleged. “They’ve turned urban planning into a den of thieves, and Chawatama’s demotion sends a clear message that if you oppose us, we’ll bury you.”
In a move described as “putting a fox in charge of the henhouse,” former police commissioner Obey Law Moyo was elevated to Security Manager, a role many say was created to whitewash corruption dockets. Moyo, himself implicated as a “chief surveyor” in sprawling land scandals, has allegedly used his position to suppress investigations, destroy evidence, and facilitate the return of disgraced figures like Bowa. “Moyo’s job isn’t to protect the council, it’s to protect the cartel,” a whistleblower claimed.
Meanwhile explosive revelations have emerged about the role of Lorimac, the consultancy firm entrusted with conducting a critical job evaluation exercise for the City of Harare, in enabling systemic corruption orchestrated by Chisango and cabal. Documents seen by this publication reveal how Lorimac’s ostensibly independent evaluation process was weaponized by Chisango and Marara to create phantom positions, illegally inflate grades, and shield allies all while ordinary workers faced relentless persecution under a rigged system.
The job evaluation exercise, commissioned to Lorimac to standardize roles and ensure fairness across council departments, instead became the linchpin of a sprawling corruption network. Sources confirm that Lorimac’s original mandate strictly covered grades 5 to 16, as stipulated by the National Employment Council (NEC). Shockingly, Chisango and Marara with no legal authority colluded to manipulate the process, directing Lorimac to expand its scope to include grades 1 to 4, a move explicitly prohibited under NEC guidelines. This illegal expansion allowed the duo to fraudulently create positions such as “Assistant Town Clerk” and “Executive Head Public Safety Manager,” roles that never existed in Lorimac’s original framework.
Worse, Lorimac’s final report, a copy of which has been obtained by this publication exposes glaring discrepancies. The phantom positions, tailor-made for Marara’s benefit, were retroactively inserted into the evaluation without council approval or transparency. “Lorimac’s involvement was supposed to bring credibility, but Chisango and Marara turned it into a tool for patronage,” a whistleblower alleged. “They abused Lorimac’s work to justify promoting cronies and burying land scandals.”
Chisango and Marara also stand accused of illegally transferring the Head of Public Safety Section to the Town Clerk’s office and ousting Mr. Jabulani Duve as Head of Industrial Relations, a blatant maneuver to halt disciplinary hearings targeting their allies, including Nyabeza, Bowa, Tongoona, Chiendambuya, Dzehonye, Tayerera, and Nhekairo. While these individuals saw their suspensions unlawfully reversed and cases buried, low-ranking workers faced ruthless prosecution under the same code of conduct.
A ministerial order explicitly barred employees with pending court cases from returning to work, yet Chisango has repeatedly defied it, reinstating tainted allies without documentation or council resolutions. Lorimac’s compromised job evaluation allowed land scandal suspects to evade justice entirely. “Cases not involving land were pursued, but the moment land fraud was implicated, everything stopped,” an insider revealed. This double standard triggered explosive clashes between Marara and Jabulani Duve who demanded accountability only to be sidelined.
The implications are staggering, a respected firm like Lorimac, tasked with ensuring equity, has had its work twisted to entrench a criminal enterprise within the council. Workers’ are now demanding answers from Lorimac, questioning whether the firm turned a blind eye to the manipulation or was coerced into compliance. “This isn’t just about corruption it’s about a reputable company’s evaluation being exploited to destroy meritocracy,” fumed a Local Government official.
Pressure is now mounting for a forensic audit of Lorimac’s role and a probe into Chisango and Cabal, to determine how deep the rot goes since land scandals have been buried and phantom positions are now bankrolled by ratepayers . A once trusted consultancy’s reputation is also under fire, as City of Harare’s governance now resembles a criminal enterprise.
Council spokesperson Stanley Gama declined to comment on the allegations, citing “ongoing internal processes,” but a senior official within his office, speaking anonymously due to fear of retaliation, issued a scathing rebuke “How do you explain suspended officials waltzing back into offices, creating fake roles, and looting millions without a single resolution? They’ve turned departments into ATMs, markets into cash laundries, and land records into fiction. The ERP system is their nightmare because sunlight kills roaches. Until higher authorities stop pretending not to smell the rot, residents will keep suffering.”
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