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The economy has been on a difficult patch in recent months, amid increasing inflation and shortages of electricity and fuel.
Prices of goods and services have been rising in sympathy, making life challenging for the people. Businesses and institutions have been affected too. To alleviate the difficulties its workers are facing, the Government has from time to time, paid them cushioning allowances. Some in the private sector have done likewise.
Due to the adverse impact of rising inflation on revenues and operations, Bulawayo City Council on Monday presented its second supplementary budget in four months. The latest one amounting to $507 million proposes a 300 percent increase in tariffs. On the same day, the local authority unveiled its proposed $2, 8 billion budget for 2020 which will see rates rising by 400 percent.
Presenting both budgets in special full council meeting, Councillor Mzama Dube said:
“Your Worship, allow me to now turn to the proposed second supplementary budget for the year 2019. The proposed second supplementary budget is necessitated by the changes in the economy after the initial supplementary budget. These economic changes have negatively affected the 2019 budget to the extent that council will not be able to continue providing services adequately up to the end of the year unless this supplementary budget is effected.
“As earlier stated, water treatment chemicals are now among the products that are acquired at the prevailing bank rate while continuous fuel [price] increases are causing havoc in service costs. Your Worship, in view of the foregoing, I propose that the total Second Supplementary Budget for 2019 be pegged at $507,589,934.”
He added:
“To prepare Bulawayo for a brighter future, the 2020 budget seeks to deliver further investment in our public services. The roads, water and sewerage infrastructure need a facelift. Our social services infrastructure such as schools and vocational centres are in a bad state and need to be restored. — Your Worship, council is mandated to deliver quality services to residents.”
We note that apart from decrying the parlous state of council finances that he attributed to the prevailing economic challenges, a dominant theme in Clr Dube’s budget speech was the need to increase tariffs to match the obtaining operating environment to enable council to provide better services in Bulawayo. He actually pointed out that council was mandated to deliver “quality” services.
Residents expect council to do just that – deliver quality services.
Residents across the city, particularly in Makokoba, Entumbane, Njube, Mzilikazi, Sizinda and Mpopoma do not expect to live side by side with mounds of festering garbage which council fails to collect for weeks on end. They expect it to be collected weekly so that they live in a clean environment without the risk of contracting diseases caused by parasites breeding in the refuse to then contaminate their food or bite them in the case of mosquitoes. They don’t expect to live in an environment that is aesthetically compromised by heaps of garbage rising at every open space in their neighbourhoods.
Residents in high density suburbs do not expect to have sewer lines bursting every time, spewing untreated effluent into streets where their children play.
They, too, expect council to prove its commitment to delivering quality service by maintaining a navigable road network, not one that is riddled with potholes as is the case now. They don’t want their vehicles to be damaged by craters that go unattended on the city’s roads. They don’t want to be inconvenienced having to carve alternative roads having been forced off the conventional but torn ones.
Additionally, the people of Bulawayo do not want their neighbourhoods to be unlit at night, risking muggings and other dangers lurking in darkness because council cannot maintain a working street lighting system.
They do not want petty personal differences to result in councillors and senior managers trading fists and insults at City Hall, compromising service delivery. They have not forgotten how Deputy Mayor, Tinashe Kambarami embarrassed himself after he threw Town Clerk Mr Christopher Dube out of his office in July. The drama was utterly needless as it brought so much bad publicity to the local authority.
Residents don’t pay steep rates or elect councillors for them to play monkey games at council but to deliver quality services to the people.
In short, Bulawayo residents do not expect to take a 700 percent increase in tariffs in this demanding economic environment and get an unimproving, in some cases, deteriorating service delivery in return.
Online Reporter