Woes Mount For Nkayi RDC CEO—Accused of Nepotism

Nkayi Rural District Council Acting CEO Lawrence Mudimba is now being accused of nepotism. Graphic by The Citizen Bulletin

BY VUSINDLU MAPHOSA | @The_CBNews | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | MAR 5, 2021

Nkayi RDC CEO has been accused of defying procedures in the sale of housing stands; now he is being accused of nepotism—amid all this, he has declared his innocence while his supporters say this is a smear campaign.

NKAYI (The Citizen Bulletin) — Acting Chief Executive Officer at the Nkayi Rural District Council (NRDC), Lawrence Mudimba, who is being accused of nepotism— is alleged to be clandestinely hiring close friends and relatives to work as graduate trainees in the local authority.
 
According to internal sources, residents association and concerned councillors, claim nepotism and corruption are the order of the day since Mudimba assumed office after the ouster of former CEO Zimbabwe Ndlovu.

The local authority was recently caught in the eye of a storm after councillors accused Mudimba and other senior council employees of selling residential stands without following proper procedures.

Latest developments from the troubled local authority show that some residents and councillors are concerned that Mudimba recently employed five graduate trainees without due process.

“He is unilaterally doing the process of recruiting graduate students, namely Tonia Sandile Nyoni, Tracy Wafawanaka, Witness Dlamini, Buhle Dube, Zithelo Mpofu and another with a Mudimba surname. All these graduate trainees are well known Mudimba's friends’ relatives, while some are his close relatives,” a councillor privy to the details says, requesting to remain anonymous.

The councillors say after Mudimba realised that his unprocedural act had been exposed, he advertised the posts.
 
The advertisement under the council letterhead dated February 10 states that Nkayi RDC seeks to recruit qualified, talented and ambitious young graduates to undergo a 24 months intensive, structured learnership programme in the organisation’s key disciplines: Administration and Human resources, Finance, Environment, Engineering and Social services.

“Candidates should be holders of a relevant first degree and able to demonstrate the ability to learn. Degree class 2.1 or better and interested self-driven and passionate applicants who hold relevant qualifications,” reads the advert.

The Councillor says Mudimba wants to turn the Council into a Mudimba dynasty by unilaterally bringing his friends and relatives into the organisation to consolidate his grip on power and get rid of those employees he does not like.
 
This is said not to be the first time this has happened.
 
“There was an unprocedural recruitment process for the post of planning officer, Accounts clerk and Receptionist posts, when the shortlisting had been done and when the interviewees were invited for the interview on September 23, 2020.  Mudimba approached some friends (Cllrs), and that interview process was abruptly stopped,” says the disgruntled councillor.
 
“The candidates who were informed to attend the interview were also ordered not to come for interviews because Mudimba had interests of bringing his relatives by backdoor into the Council.”
 
“Mudimba has seriously divided councillors and the staff. He has brought a lot of disharmony because of his secret illegally underhand dealings, dictatorship, unfairness, bias and unprofessionalism.”

Nkayi Residents Association representative Obvious Fuyane confirms the chaos at the NRDC blaming it on Mudimba, adding that residents will resort to violent means to confront him if nothing is done to stop the rot.

“This is happening here at Nkayi and the person causing all this is Mudimba. He is using many departments and people. He has taken students as trainee employees without following proper formalities.”
Obvious Fuyane, residents’ association representative

“But as residents, we have no power to stop him, as we speak; he has been fighting the former CEO leading to his retrenchment. He now brings students but as residents, we do not want students we want qualified personnel for proper service delivery to be achieved.”
 
Fuyane says many issues need to be resolved, adding that residents are asking the central government to intervene as they are not happy with what is happening.
 
“Nkayi will not progress with this person. It is said that instead of seeing people with 53 districts National Identification codes being employed at the council we are seeing people from Harare, Binga, Plumtree flooding the council,” says Fuyane.
 
“If we knew that this is what Mudimba would be doing as residents, we would have fought tooth and nail to prevent his employment. As residents we pay rates and encourage others to pay, but how do we do that when the service delivery is deteriorating like this?”
 
Wafawanaka (a student) dismissed the claims that she was already working at the council saying she has not yet been employed or called for the job at the council.
 
“No I have not been engaged by the council and I have not been called for an interview,” she says.
 
Nyoni (student) says she had not yet started working at the council though she thinks their issue is still being discussed by the council.
 
“We have not yet started working at the council. I think our issue is being discussed at council under resolutions,” she says.
 
Other three mentioned students were either not answering their calls or disconnecting them.

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Mudimba recently revealed to The Citizen Bulletin that there was chaos in council with some people wanting him out of the local authority at all costs by framing him.

He says he will keep on working to normalize the situation and resolve the conflict to allow development to happen in Nkayi adding that the noise being made is stifling all efforts to develop the district.

Council chairperson Jameson Mnethwa says the matter of having students to assist at the council offices has been discussed but no resolution has been passed.  He says he is not aware if there are already students working from the council.
 
“I am not sure if the students are already there but we discussed some time that we need to engage students to assist at council considering the staff shortage that is there,” Mnethwa says.
 
“The problem is that there are some people who hate Nkayi so much and are making up a lot of lies about it.”

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