adminMarvelous Moyo Gwanda Correspondent
GWANDA Town Council has proposed offsetting its $8 million debt by offering creditors land as it is not in a position to pay due to cash flow problems.
The resolution on the debt liquidation strategy was made at a full council meeting held at the council’s chambers on Tuesday.
The finance and licensing committee chairperson Councillor Johane Ncube said due to low revenue that is being collected, it has been resolved that some service providers owed by the municipality be offered land instead of money.
“Revenue collection is still bad and we proposed that we offer land to some of those we owe. Council will give land to TelOne, one of our service providers, so that we offset the debt for telephone charges,” he said.
The local authority owes TelOne more than $62,000 in telephone charges.
But the arrangement would depend on whether or not the service providers accept the land offer.
Other service providers owed by council are the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) which the local authourity owes $6 million.
It also owes Zesa $188,000; the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) $524,000; the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) $96,000; Local Authorities Pension Fund (LAPF) $130,000 and the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef) $21,000.
Pensioners are owed $28,000.
The council is also failing to pay its workers’ funeral policies.
Clr Ncube urged other councillors to encourage people in their communities to honour their debts so as to reduce the town’s cashflow problems.
“If each household could at least pay $30 monthly, it would go a long way in reducing the debt,” he said.
Gwanda town Mayor Clr Knowledge Ndlovu concurred with Clr Ncube saying some residents last paid their bills 12 months ago.
“Ever since the write off, some rate payers have not paid anything. We don’t want to start taking each other to the courts and as much as we want an improvement in service delivery, residents need to work with council,” he said.
Meanwhile, council sold land to a land developer Forit company and purchased five pick-up trucks which are expected to help improve service delivery.
derick.khumalo