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HARARE - Harare town clerk Tendai Mahachi has defended his $13 000 salary saying it was approved by the mayor and the Local Government ministry.
He told a parliamentary portfolio committee on Local Government chaired by Zanu PF MP Irene Zindi yesterday that his salary was in line with findings of a local financial auditing firm which was tasked by the Harare Municipality to carry out market research on the salaries earned by council directors.
“My conscience is clear and I have not overpaid myself or undertook any regional or international trip that I am not entitled to because I know that the financial position of the council is very difficult,” Mahachi told lawmakers. “I am employed by the council not anyone else. My job interview was held by the councillors and ministry of Local Government who gave me an employment letter.”
The legislators questioned the rationale of Mahachi and his directors awarding themselves “hefty salaries” at a time when his council was failing to provide adequate service to rate payers.
They also demanded the scrapping of housing and education allowances to the directors which they deemed unnecessary.
Mahachi said the salary was approved after a consultation that was carried by Grant Thornton Camelsa auditing company. He said the Kurasha Commission report also justified their salaries.
He said he had informed the Harare mayor Bernard Manyenyeni and showed him the salary schedule of all directors, which he claimed the mayor had approved.
Mahachi was suspended last month pending investigations into allegations of failing to discharge his duties and furnishing council with the salary schedule for Town House bosses.
The three-month suspension came after media reports that Mahachi, together with 18 managers, took home about $500 000 monthly, an assertion later rubbished by Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo.
Manyenyeni had said the suspension would be for a period of three months and was done in terms of Section 13 of the Urban Councils Act.
But Chombo told a press conference in Harare last month that Mahachi was bouncing back as he could not be used as a sacrificial lamb because of a schedule whose origins were unknown.
Legislators did not approve the salary schedule that Mahachi produced, demanding that it be revised because it was not in sync with the “shoddy service” council was giving to residents.
