HARARE City Council employees are protesting over the return of Mathew Marara as acting human capital director three years after his suspension on corruption allegations.
Marara was the city’s housing director and was suspended in 2020 on corruption allegations involving residential stands.
He resigned, but later claimed that he was still a council employee.
The courts also ordered council to pay him US$329 000 compensation for the period he was on suspension.
Council employee Tedious Chisango, who is also the Zimbabwe Urban and Rural Council Nurses Workers Union (ZURCNWU) secretary-general, told NewsDay that Marara did not deserve to be reinstated.
“If you resign, you get terminal benefits like a gratuity or pension, not compensation. Marara cannot claim that he was on suspension for two years because Statutory Instrument 13 of 2015 clearly states that suspension without wages, salaries and/or other benefits shall be for a duration not exceeding 14 days, and suspension with full salary and benefits shall not exceed 30 days,” Chisango said.
“He is, therefore, not entitled to all the money that is said to be his compensation.
“We are also contesting his employment status. If you want to rejoin a company after resigning, you reapply and proper procedures are followed, like interviews, before you get back to work.
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“The main problem here is that someone destroyed the evidence of his resignation, but everyone knows that he resigned. Instead, he must be investigated and charged for the illegal sale of council land and prejudicing it of millions of United States dollars.”
Chisango said ZURCNWU had tried to engage town clerk Hosiah Chisango on the matter, but the efforts continued to hit a brickwall.
“The mayor (Ian Makone) is too busy doing orientations, and the town clerk didn’t respond at all. We are going to give them up to the end of the month, then approach the minister,” he added.
Marara could not be reached for comment as well.
The town clerk and Makone did not answer calls from NewsDay despite repeated efforts.
On September 19, ZURCNWU wrote to Makone registering its displeasure with the treatment of senior employees facing “serious” misconduct charges.
“It has come to our attention that some senior HCC employees who committed serious misconduct have not undergone any disciplinary hearings. In addition to that, some senior members who resigned from the council to escape disciplinary action were reemployed without following proper procedure,” said the union’s chairperson, Simbarashe Tafirenyika.
“We, therefore, demand reinstatement of all our members who were discharged from HCC as of 2021 to date. We also demand the suspension of any other hearings until the cases of senior employees are dealt with.”
