Local government has suspended Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume, deputy mayor Luckson Mukunguma and four other councillors on allegations of gross incompetence and misconduct of duty.

The six are both facing criminal charges involving abuse of office.

Mafume is remanded in custody after he was denied bail on his second set of charges, which relate to allegations that he tried to interfere with a witness in his first case, for which he had been granted bail.

Mukunguma and a host of councillors Hammy Madzingira (Ward 10), Costa Mande (Ward 14), Anthony Shingadeya (Ward 11) and Tonderai Chakaredza (Ward 31) are out on bail on corruption-related charges involving land allocations.

According to the suspension letters, the councillors are being charged with gross incompetence and misconduct of duty after they allegedly approached the now suspended housing director Mr Addmore Nhekairo to illegally allocate stands to relatives and cronies who were not on the housing waiting list.

Permanent Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Mr Nick Mangwana confirmed the suspensions on his Twitter handle yesterday. “Harare Mayor Mafume, his deputy councillor Mukunguma and four other Harare councillors who have cases pending before the courts have been suspended by the Minister of Local Government until the finalisation of their cases,” he said.

Harare will now have just 20 functioning councillors instead of the usual 46. Councillors were elected on the MDC-Alliance ticket and a batch were recalled by the MDC-T leaving a number of vacancies.

Apart from these, there are also councillors on remand and now suspension on allegations of corrupt allocation of land.

While a council meeting requires just 17 councillors present to form a quorum, much of the work of the council is done in committees and depending on the distribution of the vacancies, there may be swathes of suburbs without representation until by-elections are held.