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Peter Matika, Senior Reporter
Bulawayo City Council says it needs at least 110 000 litres of fuel per month to carry out efficient service delivery and quickly refuted allegations that it has indefinitely suspended other forms of service delivery.
In a statement issued on Friday evening, the Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube, said the council had been faced with acute challenges in accessing foreign currency, which it needs to procure fuel for service delivery.
“The City of Bulawayo requires at least 70 000 litres of diesel and 40 000 litres of petrol on a monthly basis to provide efficient service delivery to residents of Bulawayo,” said Mr Dube.
He said council had not suspended any service delivery but had in the past few months been facing challenges accessing fuel mostly due to lack of foreign currency.
“The general shortage of fuel in the market, cash flow challenges within council and the inability of council to generate foreign currency, which is required by a majority of fuel suppliers in the country, have in some instances caused interruption of service delivery,” said Mr Dube.
He said once fuel supplies improved service delivery would be restored to optimum levels.
“The City of Bulawayo remains committed to the provision of quality services to the satisfaction of all stakeholders. There are no instances where council has suspended services in totality.
“As supplies of fuel improve, services are restored to optimum levels, while a depletion of fuel supplies subsequently affects service delivery,” said Mr Dube.
Last week the council caused an outrage among the residents for “suspending” emergency services, with residents saying it was extremely irresponsible for the local authority to that.
The council had announced that it was suspending emergency services citing fuel shortages.
Residents reacted in anger and called on the local authority to put its house in order.
Bulawayo United Residents Association (Bura) chairperson Mr Winos Dube said while residents appreciated that the country was in a difficult economic situation characterised by fuel shortages, emergency services should never be compromised.
“It’s a very sad situation but our expectations as residents, as rate payers, is that we believe that management of institutions such as local authorities should always have what is called a disaster management plan in place. In as much as we appreciate that we are faced with an economy where we have been running short of fuel in the country, we are saying the local authority should have made sure it had enough fuel for emergency services like ambulances because those are crucial at any given time,” said Mr Dube.
He said the city had witnessed improvements in fuel supplies during the festive season and residents could therefore not understand why council was taking such a drastic measure.
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