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Callie-Lou Kakwere Herald Reporter
There has been a marked improvement in the number of people settling their monthly bills and rates following the recent move by the Government ordering all local councils to write off debts for residents, a local authority official said. Chitungwiza town clerk Mr George Makunde said that Chitungwiza residents no longer want to accumulate arrears on their rates and bills following the move by the Government to write off debts of nearly four years and hence there is a remarkable improvement.
“Since we started issuing out bills to residents with their debts written off, the residents are complying by paying their bills, only a few others are not paying and procedures will be taken on how to deal with them decisively,” he said.
He said residents must continue complying and paying up their bills to avoid any unnecessary quarrels with the council and if they do not, appropriate measures would be taken because of the need to provide service to rate payers.
“Debt cancellation did not affect anyone since no one was able to collect any debts for the past seven years, so those debts accumulated over the years by the residents were seen as bad debts and hence they were written off, but we are now urging people to pay up their bills to avoid the previous situation and so that we can also be able to pay for the supplies,” he said.
Chitungwiza City Council has since written off debts amounting to US$38 million and Harare City Council has since written off a US$14 million debt it was owed by the Chitungwiza municipality in line with the Government directive to scrap outstanding bills dating back to 2009.
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