adminSukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
CHIEFS in Bulilima District are set to start summoning defaulting ratepayers to their courts as part of efforts by the local authority to boost revenue collection.
Bulilima Rural District Council chairperson Morgen Ndebele said the local authority had decided to bring on board traditional leaders to ensure that people pay for services rendered.
He said a meeting that was held recently between council management and traditional leaders agreed on the new arrangement.
“We held a meeting as various stakeholders to improve our revenue collection as people aren’t paying their development levies. All along as council we’ve been relying on our own strategies of collecting levies.
“We’ve realised the need to bring on board various leadership structures within the district. As council we realised that chiefs have a lot of influence in the community and hopefully they can encourage people to pay. We’re yet to see the fruits of this strategy as we’ve just implemented it,” Ndebele said.
He said in 2015 the local authority had a projected yearly budget of $2.1 million, but council managed to collect only $451,000.
He said defaulting ratepayers were expected to agree on a payment plan with traditional leaders.
Chief Mpini said under the new arrangement, defaulting ratepayers were going to be summoned by chiefs and headmen who were going to demand an explanation for their actions.
He said this would help villagers to realise that failure to meet their obligations was an offence.
Chief Mpini said as traditional leaders they were disturbed by non-payment of levies as this stalled development.
He also said there was a need for council to be transparent and give feedback to ratepayers on how their monies would have been spent in order to encourage them to pay.
derick.khumalo