The party was thrown into panic after Bulawayo residents, reacting to the Town Clerk fiasco, called on the Government to dissolve the BCC and replace it with a Commission, developments interpreted as a rejection of the MDC Alliance.
In an interview with local media on Sunday, Mr Chamisa said the decision by Clr Kambarami to suspend Mr Dube was done without consultation and blessings of other councillors.
“We didn’t like the way there was that exchange between the Deputy Mayor and the Town Clerk; that is totally unacceptable, it was not called for,” said Mr Chamisa.
“In any event all the things are supposed to be done by way of consultation, by caucus, it has to be informed by our broad trust in the local authorities and all those tenets were violated and this is why we need remedial action or correction to make sure that things are done according to plan,” said Mr Chamisa.
“If there is corruption it has to be investigated, but with the full knowledge of those who are in council, the Mayor as the head. I wouldn’t want a situation where the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.”
On July 11, Clr Kambarami and Ward 4 councillor Silas Chigora violently ejected Mr Dube from his office after he refused to take a letter “suspending” him from duty.
Clr Kambarami, who was the acting Mayor in the absence of Clr Solomon Mguni who was in South Africa, accompanied by Clr Chigora, recorded the proceedings as they shoved Mr Dube out of his office at the City Hall after he told them that their actions neither had substance nor legal basis.
They then called for backup in the form of councillors Tawanda Ruzive, Arnold Batirai and Felix Mhaka before Mr Dube left the office which they proceeded to lock and insert a key blocker.
Clr Mguni reinstated Mr Dube, but his office was not immediately accessible as Clr Kambarami was still holding onto the keys. A special full council meeting was held last Monday to ratify the reinstatement of the Town Clerk.
Mr Chamisa held a crisis meeting with Bulawayo councillors and Members of Parliament on Saturday where he reportedly berated Clr Kambarami and his crew. Sources who attended the meeting held at a city hotel said Mr Chamisa lashed out at Bulawayo councillors for being immature and an embarrassment to the party, amid claims he is contemplating wielding the axe on some of them.
“He expressed displeasure with what happened in Bulawayo saying it was embarrassing for the party and should not happen again. He said if there were any investigations against the Town Clerk, they should have been done procedurally. He attacked the councillors for being immature and trying to use their positions to enrich themselves. He backed the Mayor for reinstating the Town Clerk stating that he did a noble job,” said the source.
“Chamisa also took a swipe at Deputy Mayor Kambarami saying he should not assume that he has Mayoral powers. He said he knew that Kambarami was ambitious and wanted to be the city’s Mayor but the party also had to carefully manage regional politics.”
The source also revealed that in the meeting, it was also revealed that Clr Kambarami was getting his orders from some MDC Alliance executive members in Harare.
“Some members who are in the national structures of local governance are trying to control councils by giving directives on which companies to award tenders. They have done so with other councils where the party is in charge and wanted to do the same here in Bulawayo.
“They even forwarded names of certain companies that they said should be prioritised in the awarding of tenders,” added the source.
“In Bulawayo they wanted to work with Kambarami who seemed favourable to their idea. But most of the councillors came out terrified following the meeting with Chamisa as he was told the brutal truth that party members in the province were trying to sanitise.”
The source said to show that the stakeholders meeting was not even genuine, it did not include the biggest residents associations — Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association and Bulawayo United Residents Association but was dominated by party affiliate organisations who did not even raise pertinent issues regarding developments in Bulawayo.
MDC Alliance Bulawayo spokesperson Mr Swithern Chirowodza said after the closed door meeting between Mr Chamisa, MPs and the councillors, the city fathers seemed very distraught.
“What I saw after the meeting with the councillors and MPs, is that the councillors were sad. That is all I can say at the moment. It looks like the president is going to wield the axe on some councillors. They were sad,” said Mr Chirowodza. Clrs Mguni and his deputy Kambarami could not be reached for comment as they were not answering their phones yesterday.
