BULAWAYO – The revolt against local government minister July Moyo is growing after the City of Bulawayo became the second local authority to reject his plan to divert devolution funds to acquire fire tenders from Belarus.
Moyo imposed the fire tenders deal on local authorities last month. The murky arrangement, which Moyo said was a “government-to-government” agreement, could cost the councils over US$32 million.
The fire tenders are hugely overpriced at US$464,296 each.
In a letter to town clerks, secretaries and CEOs dated June 20, Moyo said each “rural local authority” would get one fire engine while “urban local authorities” would get two and “metropolitan local authorities” are in line to get three each.
The City of Harare has already vowed to fight the imposition, and now Bulawayo councillors also say fire tenders are not a priority.
“Our fire and ambulance is not bad and we still have fire tenders and ambulances,” deputy mayor Mlandu Ncube told a full council meeting on Wednesday.
“Where we have a problem is vehicles for road maintenance, vehicles to attend to sewages bursts, grave digging and refuse collection. We were shocked to hear that some are directing that we have to purchase fire tenders.
“As a city, we have a big problem with service delivery trucks and what will it help buying fire tenders when they won’t be able to traffic our roads due to their poor state? Refuse will be all over the place making it hard for our fire trucks to travel to attend to fires. The talk for us to buy three fire tenders must end on social media and not come here.”
Ncube, the councillor for Ward 1, said “residents have sent me to say no to it.”
“They say they want refuse collected on time, graders, tippers and water bowsers.”
AFTRADE DMCC, a Belarusian company owned by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s associate, Alyaksandr Zingman, was picked to supply the fire tenders without going to tender.
Edwin Ndlovu, a councillor in Makokoba, slammed Moyo’s plan to dictate how the city uses its devolution allocation.
“Central government must not budget for us and spell out how we use our money. The move defeats the whole purpose of devolution,” Ndlovu said.
“If there is a need for fire tenders, it us as a council who must priorities it and when a need arises for us to request government to assist us by sourcing cheap fire tenders it must be us as a council approaching the central government and not the other way round.
“We don’t want another Pomona in Bulawayo. It’s us who must look for tenders and if what government is providing is the cheapest, then we will go for it provided it is our priority.”
Councillor Ernest Rafa Moyo added; “We had a tour of the fire brigade department two days ago and our tenders are okay and they are working.”
Councillor Rodney Jele said the City of Bulawayo was doing well in fire prevention awareness campaigns so that there is less need for fire tenders.
“If ever the minister wants to assist the city, focus should be on present needs, and fire tenders are not one of those,” Jele said.
Moyo’s latest directive comes after he foisted a US$320 million waste-to-energy contract on the City of Harare with a company registered in the Netherlands, but with no history of undertaking similar projects. Geogenix BV is owned by Klodian Mertiri, an Albanian businessman with links to President Mnangagwa’s twin son, Sean.
