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Herald Reporter
Heads are set to roll at Harare City Council over the failure by management to have a working billing system for the city for the past six years as it is currently incapacitated to effectively receipt and bill residents.
The non-functionality of a council billing system has become a burden to residents with some receiving a monthly bill of as much as US$800 monthly.
Some council officials are alleged to be deliberately conniving to sabotage the proper working of a billing system after their bid to replace a US$75 000 system with a US$51 million system was shot down last year.
Yesterday during a special full council meeting, officials from the Information Technology department and Procurement were exchanging jabs failing to explain how for the fourth time failed to have a tender approved for the new billing system.
The IT department said all their bids for the new billing system met the required threshold before submitting to procurement.
Procurement in turn said their tender was rejected because of lacking a clause stipulating the need for a “site visit” to the company that had won the tender to simply verify its capacity.
During the meeting, some councillors, however, proposed to either suspend or fire the officials for incompetence while others sought an audit first to verify why the current billing is failing to be effective.
Councillor Denford Ngadziore said corruption was rife surrounding the delays in the city having a proper billing system.
“On ERP there seems to be connivance between city council officials and other agencies because the system of the City of Harare is not working and for years residents have been complaining.
“A monthly rate for one of the houses in Mabelreign was equivalent to US$800 a pensioner for that matter. There is a need for collectiveness to resolve the issue urgently to make sure they are happy,” he said.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter