Gokwe owed $2,8m

Michael Magoronga Midlands Correspondent
Gokwe Town Council is owed $2,8 million in unpaid rates and bills by ratepayers, crippling the local authority’s service delivery system.

Gokwe Town Secretary Ms Mellania Mandeya urged residents to settle their outstanding bills to ensure quality service delivery by the local authority.

“We appeal to the ratepayers, both individuals and cooperates, to approach our town house for engagement and see how best they can settle their bills.

“We have a debt management policy which contains a provision for engagement,” she said.

Ms Mandeya said failure to reach an agreement means the local authority has an option of taking the legal route.

“The same debt management policy also contains a provision for lawsuits in the event the two parties fail to reach an agreement,” she said.

The non-payment of rates by residents has had a negative impact on the operations of the council.

“We have a lot of projects lined up like the construction of vendors’ stalls and upgrading of existing ones as we seek to decongest the vendors. That will require funding and there is nowhere we can get that if rates are not being paid,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ms Mandeya revealed that the local authority is likely to adopt a standstill $2,6 million budget.

“The likelihood is that we will maintain the tariffs and that will mean we will adopt a standstill budget of $2,6 million that we used last year. We will, however, consult the stakeholders and, if need be, changes may be made on one or two items but the idea was to maintain (the staus quo),” she said.