Harare City Council paid US$1,1 million in advance to a South African company for a water treatment project that has yet to be commissioned, the municipality’s Audit Committee chairperson Councillor Blessing Duma said yesterday.
Cllr Duma said this while giving evidence before the Commission of Inquiry appointed by President Mnangagwa to probe the operations of the Harare City Council from 2017 to date.
According to minutes of the council’s environmental management committee meeting, the SA company Nanotech was awarded a contract in 2020 to supply, install and commission chlorine dioxide water treatment technology at Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Works.
The US$1,1 million was paid in 2022 despite the contract stating that payment was only due after Nanotech had successfully delivered the project to the city.
Appearing before the commission yesterday, Cllr Duma, who represents Ward 43 in Budiriro, said there was institutionalised corruption at the council.
He said council was not obligated to make any advance payments while the terms of the contract stated that the money was only due after Nanotech had successfully delivered water to the city.
“When we dig deeper, we read the MoU (memorandum of understanding), City of Harare was not even supposed to pay a cent because the MoU is very clear that the City of Harare would do certain things, then Nanotech would provide its equipment and everything on site.
“Those people knew the MoU. It was the chamber secretary who signed all the contracts and all the agreements for the city. They knew the contents of the MoU,” said Cllr Duma.
He said Nanotech assured council that on payment of the US$1,1 million, Harare would receive a substantial inflow of clean water within three to five days.
“On August 30, 2022, there was a special council (meeting) that we were attending and a certain company called Nanotech made a presentation about the solution for water chemicals (challenges),” he said.
“When they made that presentation, they promised that when we pay US$1,1 million within three days, Harare will be flooded with water. Three years down the line, nothing has happened.
“In that presentation, they said they would give us water if we gave them US$1,1 million. There was an MoU that was signed that day and council resolved that after they made the presentations, ‘that’s okay, we can sign the MoU.”
