HARARE mayor Jacob Mafume yesterday waded the Justice Maphios Cheda-led commission of inquiry into the governance issues at Town House on a walk up the garden path.
Media reports suggest that Mafume lied to the commission about his place of residence.
He gave it what he said was his residential address, to which Justice Cheda called for an inspection in loco.
To the commission’s surprise, the address was of a business premise owned by one Pfukwa.
This is the calibre of our leaders. They do not take us seriously.
It gives us the impression that they take the commission for a joke.
What prompted Mafume to lie — under oath — to the commission about his residential address?
Asked why he had taken them to a wrong address, Mafume said: “It was my error.”
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The mayor, who is supposed to superintend over the city’s affairs, got lost on the way to his house.
How on earth does that happen?
The mayor’s duties include representing the city at official functions, welcoming new businesses to the city, greeting national and international guests; enforcing the law, executing local laws, authorising contracts on behalf of the city and taking command of the police, maintaining law and enforcing order in times of public danger or emergency.
Other responsibilities include preparing and presenting budgets to council, setting municipal rates, approving the financing of all city operations and promoting civic awareness and community cohesion.
But for Mafume to take the whole commission and journalists to number 110 Coronation Avenue in Greendale, where the commission found an undeveloped stand and only an office structure is puzzling.
He tried to explain himself saying his place was “only two or three houses away” and that he sought his wife’s assistance to find his way home to “102 Coronation Avenue”.
“This is certainly not my house. It was my error,” Mafume said, with Justice Cheda responding: “We will give you a chance to explain”.
How then can the city take him seriously when he is taking residents for fools?
Who will pay their bills when their mayor takes his charade to serious business?
What we get is that he is showing the commission the middle finger.
The commission was appointed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and hence, we get the impression that he is telling the President that his appointees can go hang.
Surely the slow pace of development in Harare tells us that the mayor spends three-quarters of his time getting lost inside Town House and by the time he finds his way to his office, it’s time to knock off, get into his US$200 000 Toyota Land Cruiser VX, find his way to 110 Coronation Avenue and only to realise that he is lost and that actually he is trying to get to 102 Coronation Avenue instead.
What a fallacy!
