The Financial Gazette

Njabulo Ncube, Assistant Editor

SOME call him Mr Whitehead because of his grey hair while others refer to him by his initials — IC.
Mention the name Ignatius Chombo, the Minister of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development, to Mount Pleasant councillor, Warship Dumba, and other like-minded Harare city fathers in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T), they cringe or swear.
They see Chombo as a pain in their backside after having had several run-ins with the legislator for Zvimba North who is always in the news as he administers the country’s volatile urban and rural councils.
A day hardly passes without Chombo’s name featuring in the news. It is almost becoming the norm that each time he features in the news, Chombo would be crossing swords with MDC-T greenhorns in local government.
Several print headlines depict him as a battle-hardened administrator. Some of the headlines featured in recent weeks read: “Chombo rebuffs mayor”; “Chom-bo’s excessive powers need reining in”; “Chombo probes Kwekwe council”; “Chombo cracks whip on graft”; “Chombo blocks 5 mayors US trip”; “Chombo caps council meetings”, and the list goes on.
Last week The Financial Gazette reported of a looming battle between Chombo and the MDC-T as it emerged that his ministry was mulling instituting commissions to run Harare and Chitungwiza cities.
The Local Government Minister accuses the MDC-T-led city councils of mal-administration and rampant corruption, charges the premier’s party flatly deny.
In turn, the MDC-T accuses Chombo of deliberately seeking to destabilise the municipalities under its control in a desperate attempt to reverse the gains scored by Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s party in the controversial 2008 harmonised polls.
In the 2008 polls, the MDC-T swept all cities and major towns in the local government elections, effectively relegating ZANU-PF to the rural areas and the farming sector, a situation critics say has not gone down well with the revolutionary party.
Critics say as fresh elections loom, the battle for political turf is ensuing in the country’s influential local government authorities as ZANU-PF and the main formation of the MDC battle for the minds and hearts of the electorate.
Chombo has on several occasions threatened to deal with what he perceives as rot in the MDC-T councils, giving credence to assertions that it could just be a matter of time before commissions are appointed to run Chitungwiza and Harare as part of his cleansing act.
Now a typhoid outbreak in Harare is certain to give him more ammunition as his crusade against the MDC-T in the capital gathers momentum.
Observers say the former University of Zimbabwe lecturer might use this latest outbreak to read the riot act on the Muchadeyi Masunda-led Harare City Council.
More than 1 400 cases have been recorded since the outbreak, which has been linked to the city’s poor water system.
But the same critics maintain that Chombo was being driven by politics, nothing else; pointing out that there are rural councils under ZANU-PF that were being ravaged by corruption, but the minister was turning a blind eye on them.
Chombo has denied any ma-lice or political agenda. He insi-sts he was out to clean up the mess in all the local authorities with a penchant of abusing ratepayers’ money by funding expensive lifestyles of their city fathers.
For instance, Harare deputy mayor, Innocent Chiroto, is being accused of building a 27-roomed house, a project ZANU-PF spin-doctors said did not match his monthly salary.
Chombo has suspended other MDC-T councillors and mayors countrywide on misconduct and other graft charges.
Ernest Mudzengi, a Harare-based analyst, said whatever good intentions Chombo had for the local authorities under the MDC-T, these were being tainted by his hatred of the labour-backed party, which is in a power-sharing pact with ZANU-PF and Welshman Ncube’s MDC.
“What Chombo is doing is not in the best interest for the development of local communities. It’s for ZANU-PF’s interest of holding onto power,” said Mudzengi.
He said the MDC-T had an opportunity to use its hold on local authorities to endear itself with voters in cities and other major towns where it dazzled ZANU-PF in the controversial 2008 harmonised elections, but this opportunity was fast slipping through its fingers because of Chombo.
“Chombo wants to eradicate this opportunity by ensuring that the MDC-T does not have control and influence over local authorities. In this respect, what Chombo is doing can only be justifiable in so far as securing ZANU-PF’s selfish hegemonic interest is concerned. It is certainly not justifiable in terms of democratic and developmental edification,” said Mudzengi, adding that the Urban Councils Act should be amended to give power to local authorities and residents, not an individual minister whose actions could easily be motivated by partisan interests.
Psychology Maziwisa, a Harare-based political analyst, said he shared Chombo’s abhorrence for the unprofessional conduct of city fathers.
“I believe his (Chombo) actions to be the best for anyone in his position . . . Everywhere you look, be it in Chitungwiza, Victoria Falls or Mutare, there is clear and gross evidence of mismanagement and corruption and a general desire to use public funds for private purposes,” said Maziwisa.
“It’s a situation that should shame everyone and should not be allowed to continue. Yet those from the MDC-T camp seem to think this is all politics. It isn’t and they know it. Otherwise why would Prime Minister Tsvangirai, constantly call on most of his councillors to be investigated for corruption? It’s because he knows as much as everybody does that his officials are feasting on national funds to feather their own nests.
“And you know what’s really sad about this whole thing: All the blame has been placed entirely on the councillors. Of course, that’s not correct. To a greater and lesser extent, they are merely following in the footsteps of their mentors who have not done much of a job to lead by example,” he said.
Chombo’s critics, however, construe the minister’s actions as self-serving meant to glorify ZANU-PF by tainting the MDC-T ahead of elections.
But Maziwisa differs, saying the MDC-T councillors had tainted themselves by deceiving and cheating the very people they were supposed to serve.
“ZANU-PF did not cause them to steal; their selfishness did. Do they mean to suggest that Chombo should turn a blind eye to MDC-T’s frightening, despicable and unforgivable ways just because an election is looming and his actions might be regarded as expedient and self-serving?
“For all his vulnerabilities, Chombo is doing a great job, trying to clean up the mess in our councils. For that he deserves to be commended, not condemned,” he said.
But Charles Mangongera, another political analyst, disagreed with Maziwisa.
Mangongera said Chombo’s meddling in local government affairs was purely driven by politics rather than the quest for transparent and accountable public administration.
“He (Chombo) is obviously abusing the Urban Councils Act to target and victimise MDC-T-led councils. He must not forget that these councils were democratically elected by citizens and he cannot just wake up and fire them. We know that there are cases of corruption and maladministration in some of those councils, but that does not warrant the dismissal of the entire councils to be replaced by commissions,” he said.
Mangongera added that it was common cause among the generality of the population that commissions appointed by Chombo to run certain councils in the past were nothing but ZANU-PF cartels for looting and corruption.
“Harare is a case in point. All the corrupt land deals that the city is now grappling with were entered into at a time when it was being run by a commission,” he said, in apparent reference to the Sekesai Makwavarara and the Michael Mahachi commissions, which ran the city before the 2008 harmonised polls.
The arguments aside, graft is certainly taking root in both rural and urban municipalities. Being the Local Government Minister, Chombo must put a stop to the rot. But in exercising his duties, the minister must be both fair and non-partisan.