THE Livingstone city council (LCC) has suspended two senior officers for financial irregularities alleged to have been committed shortly before and during the recently hosted 20th session of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) General Assembly.
Livingstone mayor Aggrey Njekwa said Council Director of finance Kingsley Muchindu and the Director of Engineering Ben Chiyesu were this week suspended from the local authority for alleged financial mis-appropriation.
Mr Njekwa said in an interview yesterday that he was unable to give more details but confirmed that the two heads of departments were suspended for financial irregularities.
“I can confirm that director of Engineering Dr Chiyesu and Director Finance Mr Muchindu have with immediate been suspended for financial irregularities and this must have been shortly before and during the UNWTO conference,” Mr Njekwa said.
He also confirmed that the council during the same period bought seven vehicles that were distributed to heads of departments without priotising certain needy areas that the local authority needed to look into.
Mr Njekwa also confirmed that retirees had not been paid over a long period of time and workers had also gone for two months without pay a thing him described as unfortunate because the officers needed to priotise such areas.
“We have a situation where workers have gone for two months without pay and retirees have not gotten their packages but seven vehicles are bought, so it’s a matter of priorities because we also have people we owe money,” Mr Njekwa said.
He said most of the unfortunate things happened at a time when the councilors were suspended.
Mr Njekwa also revealed that the workers were planning for a work stoppage, but said that he had taken it upon himself to calm the situation because the Town Clerk Vivian Chikoti was reported out of town.
Common sense is clearly not common. How could they in their feeble minds see it fit to procure 7 vehicles which am guessing are Toyota Hilux Raiders/ Ford Rangers valued over K150,000 each and ignore a multitude of hungry families? The suspension is in ORDER! infact terminate their contracts.
I bet there aren’t a system of CAPEX Procurement at the Council for the two to have arranged the procurement of these 7 vehicle, Ka! Such a decision must have consensus with authentication from a full Council sitting. Where was the Town Clerk when these vehicles were being procured alas who endorsed the correspondence to the supplier and who were the party MOU with the supplier? They must have ploy with consensus to procure these assets amongst the Directors , it just can’t be the two without the consent of the TC and his Director minions! I smell a rat this must be a half truth promulgated!
all purchases in the council are approved by the finance and general purposes committee and thereafter by the full council meeting of which the mayor is chairman to add to that the mayor is ex-official of all the four committtees i.e.plans and development, finance and general purpose etc so where was the mayor he surely is an accomplice for failure to supervise he was dribbled in the unwto deals now he is hitting back.the tc is also a member of all the committees mentioned above
i smell masebo nearby……..hahahahahahahahahaha
The procurement of these vehicles was approved at the time the 2013 council budget was being approved. But looking at the cost of 7 vehicles, it was above the threshold 4 the council. This procurement should have been done by the provincial procurement committee.
why suspend the two officers and leave out the TC , chikoti is behind the suspension of the two especially for Dr chiyesu we know that TC has always been jealousy and threatened by educated people its just one way of frustrating him. more over CEO is TC so she mite hve authorized the buying of vehicles and played it clean.
mayor njekwa also is not clean, if he thinks he is clean let him also tell us how much the real price for the car he drives was. reg no. L1 costed.
some of us know how much the car costed and how you played with the real price by altering the invoice.