The Bulilima Rural District Council has been accused of misappropriating money generated from the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (Campfire) projects as it has not disbursed the funds to the communities for the past five years.
Council sources told Southern Eye on Sunday that the local authority has been giving waivers to hunters without following procedures.
Officials at the local authority in Matabeleland South were also accused of disbanding inter-ward committees, which used to be a link between the wards and the local authorities in order to avoid accountability.
The sources said council was granted a quota of 10 elephants in 2022 and Mvimi Safaris was given a three-year tender for hunting the wild animals.
They said the company paid for five elephants, but asked for a waiver not to pay for the remaining ones in 2023 and was given permission by the council without following procedures.
In letter dated June 19, 2023 and signed by Bulilima chief executive Biliat Mlauzi shows there was waiver for five elephants remaining in the 2022 hunting quota.
“We write to advise Mvimi Safaris that council sat on 16 of June 2023 and deliberated on your request for a waiver on payment of the five elephants that remained on 2023 hunting quota,” reads part of the letter.
“Council realised that the three elephants under management had no guarantee agreement, hence should be waived from being paid for.
“Mvimi Safaris shot eight elephants out of the guaranteed 10 elephants, hence, the balance of the two elephants are the only ones to consider for payment.
“The final decision arrived at by councillors was that Mvimi pays for the two elephants that were not taken out of a total quota of guaranteed 10.”
The decision was made as a way of bringing the issue to rest after a long period of disagreements between the two parties.
Former Bulilima RDC chairman Zoolacks Nyathi, who was also councillor for Bambadzi, said there were three concessions namely Maitengwe, which he said was the largest, Dombodema and Norwood.
“The owners of these concessions have a board called inter-ward committee composed of villagers representatives councillors and hunters,” Nyathi said.
“This provided a link between the council and the communities, but this has since been abandoned, leaving the council to be the sole decision maker without consulting communities and this has become a loophole (for looting).”
He said there was no longer any transparency in that laws were being imposed on villagers and communities had lost faith in the Campfire projects.
Ward 9 (Makhulela) councillor Charles Ngulube said they had not received the dividends for some time and were working on resolving the matter.
“The council is the one that has been having accounts for the wards,” Ngulube said. “Now we have resolved that communities should open their own accounts. We are in the process of opening our own accounts.”
He said they had realised that the hunter had been paying money to the council, but the proceeds were not reaching the communities.
Mlauzi said the council had many projects that were being implemented by communities at ward level.
“We have a total of 14 wards that are benefiting from Campfire and these share money generated from sport hunting,” Mlauzi said.
“Each ward comes up with a project to be financed in a particular way and council funds it from the dividends.”
He said the council had started distributing dividends for the year 2023 and sport hunting income for the year 2024 would be distributed at the beginning of next year.
“It is important to note that income generated in the years 2020 and 2021 was fairly small because of the Covid-19 pandemic that closed all borders for clients to come and hunt,” Mlauzi added.
“The terms of office of these Campfire or environment committees follows that of councillors. We have a new council and new councillors.
“As such there are new committees, which are fairly new and undergoing capacity building programmes to be able to articulate environmental issues.”
He accused former councillors of resisting change.
“It is common knowledge that change of office is always getting resistance from those going out,” Mlauzi said.
