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for the next six months so that consumers can concentrate on new bills.
This came out at a business community and residents meeting at the Large City Hall on Thursday where residents and businesspeople said they wanted arrears to be separated from the new bills.
The participants at the meeting said a majority of people could not afford to settle especially the old electricity, rentals and water bills, which were are back-dated to the pre-dollarisation period.
There were concerns that despite the monthly payments made to the utilities, the debts continued to increase and made it difficult for consumers to clear them.
The meeting endorsed a moratorium on payment of old debts to public utilities such as Zesa, TelOne and Bulawayo City Council stating that people did not have the capacity to clear the arrears.
The meeting also established that the closure of many companies in the city also emanated from high operational costs and failure by companies to pay telephone, rentals, and water and electricity bills.
The national vice-president of the Affirmative Action Group (AAG), Mr Sam Ncube said public utilities have been worsening an already difficult situation faced by the people of Bulawayo.
He said as the economy was still on the recovery path, the business community was also struggling and needed the support of public utilities to survive.
“We want the old debts to be parked for six months so that people can afford to pay their current bills because we have realised that the utilities have been trying to impose something that does not work. We are not saying that people should not pay what they owe, but we are saying the utilities should understand that we are still trying to recover from the 2008 economic crisis. We want all arrears dating back to be separated from the current bills until people recover during the period of respite,” he said.
Mr Ncube said Zesa should halt all disconnections in line with the statement by the Minister of Energy and Power Development, Elton Mangoma.
He added that all litigation based on non-payment of rentals and attachment of property should be stopped. Mr Ncube attacked the city council saying that it was nonsensical for them to increase the budget for next year.
“It does not make any business sense for the council to go around making consultations to increase the budget for next year. That defies logic,” he said.
The Competition and Tariff Commission chairperson Mr Dumisani Sibanda said with the low disposable incomes earned by most people, it had become impossible for people to pay current bills and arrears to Zesa, Council and TelOne.
“Almost all households in the country cannot concurrently meet all obligations because the economy is not functioning harmoniously and utilities bills have made our companies to be non-competitive. Here in Bulawayo, we have all become poor because unemployment is increasing due to the increase in the closure of companies,” he said.
The business community and residents said political leaders from the region should come in and support the moratorium.
A city lawyer, Advocate Sabelo Sibanda lambasted the city councillors for failing to understand the concerns of the people.
He blamed the city fathers for “dumping” the electorate saying they concentrated on serving their selfish needs.
“As much as we understand that the city is faced with water problems, the city fathers should also understand that we don’t have money. The city fathers should do serious self-introspection and see what exactly they have done for the people. We are not here to boost salaries of other people, therefore city fathers should understand that people have no money, inasmuch as we understand that there are have water problems,” said Advocate Sibanda.
He said councillors have failed to deliver to the people as expected and should be removed from their positions and be replaced by those who were committed to servicing the people.
“The problem is that our councillors, Members of Parliament and Ministers have been busy making better lives for themselves and have since shunned serving the interests of those who put them in those positions. We really need to hold these people to account and ensure that we all get something from the benefits derived from Bulawayo,” said Advocate Sibanda.
“What resolutions have the city fathers made concerning the water situation? All that we have seen are the car parks owned by city fathers when we have a big number of youths who are not employed and should be running such projects,” he added.
Speaking at the same meeting, Pastor Reuben Mabhena of Brethren in Christ said the city needs divine intervention to solve its problems.
“Bulawayo needs some healing and we ask God to intervene so that the city does not die. We are all after the healing of the city because it is currently in intensive care and needs to be seriously attended to,” he said.
A resident from, Njube suburb Mr Modercai Mlotshwa said most people were still struggling to settle arrears from the Zimbabwean dollar era. “We are paying our bills on a monthly basis but surprisingly we are still trying to clear up the debts incurred before dollarisation,” he said.
Online Reporter