City in drive to up revenue collection

Yeukai Karengezeka and Salomy Matare
Harare City Council is set to implement a raft of measures to boost revenue collection to improve service delivery and payment of employees on time, Town clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango has said.

He told delegates at the 7th City of Harare Rapid Results Initiative to review the past 100 days in council chambers yesterday that some of the initiatives are regularising informal settlements, a licensing blitz on businesses and tightening collections of fees in council-controlled markets.

“The next 100 days, which we expect to begin on June 1, 2019 should focus on revenue enhancement and cost containment goals.

“Regularisation of formal built up areas which do not have certificates of compliance. Preliminary assessments have indicated that plan submission fees and relevant penalties have the potential to raise an estimated $1,5 million to $2 million per month for the next three to six months,” he said.

He said the local authority will focus on a comprehensive licensing blitz, which if effectively implemented, is expected to yield about $8 million annually.

“The blitz has been extended to all properties in residential areas that are being used for commercial purposes such as Belvedere, Milton Park and others,” said Eng Chisango.

Council also expects to collect revenue from markets which have a potential of raking in $800 000 monthly.

“An interdepartmental team has been set up to implement an intensive revenue collection exercise in this sector and preliminary assessments have indicated that about $800 000 per month can be collected from the markets,” Eng Chisango said.

He also indicated that land for Disporans has potential to raise US$8 million.

Eng Chisango said their operations were being negatively affected by parallel market exchange rates.

“The past hundred days were implemented during a very difficult period, a time when foreign currency was very scarce and our revenues were being eroded by inflationary pressures.

“The existence of the interbank exchange rate and the parallel market has also affected our operations as council,” he said.

He said migration from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and BIQ billing systems had affected revenue collection efforts.

“On March 21 we were switched off from the ERP, BIQ and this obviously impacted some of our goals such as automation of the housing waiting list, the leases and revenue collection efforts.

“We will be migrating to a new system soon,” said Eng Chisango.