BY SYLVIA  MWEETWA –
THE Kabwe Municipal Council (KMC) exceeded its threshold and went against procedure when it approved the awarding of a K700,000, 000 contract for land surveys.
Former Local Government and Housing permanent secretary Timothy Hakuyu testified in a case in which  former  Livingstone Town Clerk Vivien Chikoti is facing abuse  of office while at KMC.
Mr Hakuyu said the council exceeded the K500,000,000 approval threshold that it was mandated for contracts issuance.
Ms Chikoti is  jointly  charged  with KMC director engineering  Cosmas  Mpundu with abuse of authority of office,  while  employed  as  Town Clerk  and  director of engineering for the council respectively between  January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010.
In count two, Ms Chikoti and Mr Mpundu, are alleged to have abused the authority of office in the manner they facilitated the awarding of a land survey contract to William Mhango amounting to K778, 100,000.00 between September 1, 2010 and October 31, 2010.?The amount was above the threshold of the council to sanction.
The two, who took plea before Kabwe magistrate Chimuka Mutafela, denied the charges against them.
Mr Hakuyu told the court that Anti-Corruption Commission officers on April 27, 2011 asked him about the contract for the survey of land and how it was handled.
The witness said he had told the officers that his office had received information about the survey in Kabwe and had written a letter to town clerk for Kabwe to provide information because it involved a matter of procurement.
His office received a response from the  KMC indicating the process that had been followed and that  two  issues had come out  from the  response.
The council acknowledged  its  level of  threshold as K500,000,000 and that the  contract sum was  above  K700,000,000 which  meant that it was  above the  threshold for the  council to sanction.
He  further  told  Mr  Mutafela that the council stated  in the report that the matter  would be  handled  by the Provincial Procurement  Committee and that some  officers  had faced  disciplinary  action for writing letters  to the media.
“Your  honour, I was  further  questioned  by the ACC officers  about  the  ingenious estimates but I explained  that those  were approximation  made by professionals, ie engineers to guide on the cost  of  projects,” he said.
Trial continues next month.