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The Bulawayo City Council should be commended for finally fully complying with the Government directive to write off residents’ debts amounting to more than $46 million. Town Clerk Mr Middleton Nyoni, in a statement on Wednesday, said the local authority would start issuing revised bills showing the cancellation of the bills as from 16 September.
There had been confusion over the implementation of the Government directive, which is meant to offer relief to residents who are weighed down by debts, in some cases, running into thousands of dollars.
In the run-up to the 31 July harmonised elections, President Mugabe tasked outgoing Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development Dr Ignatius Chombo to direct all urban and rural councils to write off all domestic debts — that is water, rates, refuse and sewer charges.
However, some councils had not implemented the directive and scrapped all other debts except the water charges. The obvious reason for writing off all debts except water charges was because water is the cash cow for most urban councils.
While the Bulawayo City Council officials were indicating that they had complied with the Government directive by writing off the debts, residents were complaining that the city fathers had not heeded Government’s instruction because they continued to receive bills showing the debts.
Until Wednesday’s statement by Mr Nyoni, residents continued to express concern over the failure by council to fully comply with the directive.
We were inundated with letters, e-mails and SMSs by residents complaining that the council had not fully complied.
President Mugabe’s directive was meant to cushion residents across the length and breadth of Zimbabwe who are terribly stressed by the outstanding bills.
The dire situation prompted the Head of State to intervene and councils were directed to write off all debts up to June 2013.
As the directive was issued during the heat of the election campaigns, sceptics dismissed it as a political gimmick to woo votes by Zanu-PF.
But the President and Minister Chombo made it clear that the move was a genuine decision taken after realising the suffering residents were going through battling to clear the debts.
What made matters worse was the fact that some of the debts particularly the water charges were not all accurate as several of them were based on estimated bills instead of actual meter readings.
Some residents had approached their councils to arrange payment plans but still it was proving a mammoth challenge for the residents to clear the debts.
Residents also have to contend with Zesa and TelOne debts because the two service providers of electricity and fixed telephone services were also using estimates to bill their customers.
No wonder there are growing calls for the moratorium on bills to be extended to electricity and phone charges.
This has been happening in an economy where workers are struggling because the majority of them hardly earn living wages and salaries because most sectors of the economy are performing below capacity due to the crippling sanctions imposed on the country by the West.
Now that the Bulawayo City Council has finally implemented the Government directive in full, we urge residents to do their part by religiously paying the revised bills so that they do not accumulate debts.
The same goes to residents in all other local authorities countrywide. Our President and his Government have shown they really are concerned about the welfare of citizens. We must not let them down.
We are quite aware of the financial challenges facing the majority of our people but we encourage them to make every effort to pay at least something every month so that the councils can continue to provide services and pay workers.
Online Reporter