Chronicle Editor
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is set to intensify its debt collection strategy with the procurement of more vehicles to aid the debt collection unit as well as the establishment of mobile revenue collection teams.
The local authority is in dire financial straits amid revelations that debtors increased by 33 percent while creditors increased by 21 percent. According to the latest council report, the local authority has noted that they were running the risk of being unable to pay the creditors as gap between creditors and debtors is narrowing, hence the decision to set up the debt management unit which will improve collection. The council is owed $20,5 billion while it owes its creditors $3,6 billion.
“Zesa is the largest creditor at 68 percent, followed by taxes and trade creditors eight percent, salary creditors seven percent, salaries and allowances five percent, Local Authorities Pension Fund four percent and other creditors are below three percent of the total creditors figure for the month. It should be noted that Zesa owes council a royalty of $3,4 billion and council owes Zesa for supply of electricity $2,4 billion. A set off at this moment might leave council in a positive position of $1 billion,” reads the council report.
The local authority has further upped its debt recovery strategy after councillors expressed concern over the implementation of the strategy noting that this was impacting on revenue collection.
“The matter was considered. Councillor Felix Mhaka recalled that the committee had resolved that council should purchase a new fleet of cars for the Financial Services Department as a means of aiding effective revenue collection. He sought clarity on the status of the procurement process. The Assistant Financial Director confirmed that the procurement of vehicles had almost been finalised and they would be delivered in due course,” reads the council report.
Councillors further called on the local authority to address electricity challenges at its revenue halls noting that this was also impacting negatively on its revenue collection.
“Clr Mlandu Ncube was of the view that in order to hasten the revenue collection process, Council could introduce mobile revenue collection points especially in high-density suburbs. Taking into consideration the population growth in Emganwini, he suggested that a revenue collection point had to be established in the suburb as the residents relied on the Nketa Housing Office for bill payments.
“Noting that council’s daily operations had been affected by power cuts, he suggested that generators be procured as a way of alleviating Zesa challenges. Clr Pilate Moyo noted that for the past weeks council had lost revenue due to Zesa outages. Rate payers could not pay their bills because of malfunctioning swiping machines due to network interruptions caused by electricity cuts,” reads the report.
Meanwhile, the local authority says it has acknowledged complaints from residents that meters supplied to them were locked and only accessible by meter readers.
According to the council report the installation of the locked meters was a funded project which came as a result of vandalism and theft of the meters.
Responding to followup questions on the matter, BCC corporate communications manager, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu said they had noted the concern that have been raised that residents were failing to access the meters to monitor their readings as they were locked.
“The meter replacement programme brought new meters that are lockable and the keys are kept at the meter reading section. The locking of the meters was to curb vandalism and theft which had become rampant in the city. There are no meters that are inaccessible to the meter readers,” said Mrs Mpofu.
Online Reporter