Gweru City Council suspends town clerk recruitment
By Dumisani Ndlovu
Gweru City Council has indefinitely suspended the employment of a substantive Town Clerk.
Addressing stakeholders during the State of the City Address, Gweru Mayor Councillor Martin Chivhoko initially said they had shelved the recruitment because they were meeting a lot of resistance and disturbances in carrying out the process.
Mayor Chivhoko said there are many interested parties who want the process to be done their way.
“We have suspended recruitment of the Town Clerk because there are a lot of interested parties and as a result we are facing challenges from everywhere,” he said.
The mayor said in the beginning, they were told that they had left out some qualifications on the advert.
“We added the qualifications on the other advert but two days before the advert more issues were raised, the independence of the shortlisting panel, the independence of the interview panel and so forth.
“We therefore decided that it was good for the city to remain as it is.
Everything is going on well…at least I feel things are moving in the right direction.
“I am not sure about those who feel things are not moving because there is no substantive Town Clerk, but I honestly believe things are moving in the right direction,” he said.
Mayor Chivhoko said they were under no pressure to recruit and will only do so when it is the right time for them.
On why the city has a number of acting directors, the Mayor said they had envisaged a scenario where the substantive ones would be recruited once the Town Clerk was in place.
“We had thought that he would recruit his directors, who are the directors of housing and chamber secretary. So, we will only recruit the substantive directors when we have recruited a substantive Town Clerk,” Mayor Chivhoko said.
Gweru District Development Coordinator Tarisai Mudadigwa said the failure to fill vacant posts was a burden on the Ministry of Local Government “Our performance is measured on the performance of local authorities and failure to fill the vacancies is a burden to us.
“We want to encourage council and everyone who has a role to play to ensure that we play our active roles with due diligence so that all vacancies are filled,”Mudadigwa said.
Council early this year shortlisted eight candidates for the Town Clerk’s position after an earlier advert had failed to come up with the minimum required number of candidates in December last year.
Interviews were then set for February 14 after eight candidates met the grade on the second call. Elizabeth Gwatipedza who was fired in 2020 is Gweru’s last substantive Town Clerk. Gwatipedza was succeeded by Chamber Secretary Vakai Chikwekwe who served on an acting capacity until he was also fired last year. Gweru finance director Livingstone Churu is the current acting Town Clerk and is believed to be among the applicants.
