By Alois Vinga
THE Rufaro Marketing Board (RMB) has denied allegations of non-remittances to the Harare City Council of dues for two whole years after submitting evidence that the last payments were made just recently.
President Mnangagwa appointed retired judge Justice Maphios Cheda to chair the commission, which is expected to submit its findings within three months of completing the inquiry.
The commission’s mandate includes investigating the management of revenue generated through special vehicle companies and other outsourced arrangements.
Also, its work includes unearthing the reasons behind failure to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, and the procedures for managing, selling, leasing, or transferring the local authority’s properties to private entities.
Responding to allegations by the probe team, RMB chairperson Warren Chiwawa denied allegations of non-remittance for the last two years.
Warren Chiwawa
He maintained the payments were made with last transactions having been concluded recently.
“Currently, it vacillates between US$35 000 and US$45 000 per month, but it is not the full capacity,” Chiwawa told the commission last week.
“According to the council resolution, it’s 60% towards social services like stadiums, 20% coming as cash or transfer and then the other 20%, we retain for administration and related services,” he said.
“We have remitted around US$60 000 in cash to the City of Harare, disaggregated as a US$32 000 deposit, then we made another deposit of US$24 000 and then another deposit of US$7 000.”
Chiwawa also revealed that the bulk of their funds, constituting 60%, were channeled towards service delivery.
Last year, City of Harare-owned Rufaro Marketing suspended its chief executive officer (CEO) Daniel Mutiwadirwa over alleged insubordination.
Chiwawa is part of the team tasked with the responsibility to turn around the fortunes of RMB after years of bad governance at the entity.
