admin
issuing summons to companies, businesses and residents who are defaulting on paying rates and other service charges.
The exercise is meant to recover more than $61 million owed to the local authority by customers who have not made efforts to pay their bills or discussed a payment plan with the local authority.
Those who owe more than $2 000 are being issued with High Court summons by law firms engaged by the council.
In an interview yesterday, Bulawayo Mayor Councillor Thaba Moyo said the council was serving summons to those who owe large sums of money.
“The issuing of summons is not new but council only serves summons as a last resort,” he said.
Clr Moyo said it was important for those owing council money to approach council so that a payment plan could be worked out.
“After serving the defaulters with summons, we hope they will come forward and tell us their payment plans,” said Clr Moyo.
The Mayor said at times council was forced to disconnect water to residents and companies to force defaulters to pay outstanding amounts.
He said council was very aware of the financial difficulties residents were facing hence its decision to allow defaulters to come up with payment plans based on what each each individual can afford.
At a full council meeting last Wednesday Clr Moyo warned that the council would adopt a tough stance against defaulters. He said the council needed money if it was to continue providing adequate services to its residents.
When Chronicle visited the Revenue Hall on Wednesday, an unidentified council official said some people had already been served with summons especially those residents and companies that had gone for months without paying their bills.
“I know that some people and companies that have not paid their bills for a long time have been served with summons. This is meant to force the residents or companies to approach council with their payment plans,” said the official.
Recently the council’s Director of Financial Services, Mr Kimpton Ndimande, said thousands of ratepayers in arrears had been handed over to the council’s legal department.
He said after the defaulters’ water supplies were disconnected, many of them did not bother to approach council or to clear their outstanding arrears, leaving council with no option but to hand them over to the legal department for action.
The Bulawayo United Residents Association appealed to council to engage residents as opposed to disconnecting water supplies.
It said residents should be given time to pay and council should be sensitive to the plight of its residents given the economic challenges facing the majority of people.
The Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association said most residents were struggling to clear their arrears because the bills were just outrageous.
The association said council should just write off some of the bills because residents were of the view that the council’s billing system was in shambles given the monthly bills being sent to households.
Online Reporter