JUST IN: Gweru residents owe council $750 million

Patrick Chitumba, Midlands Bureau Chief

GWERU City Council (GCC) debtors’ bill has ballooned to over $750million from $290million.

The local authority says it is now considering re-engaging debt collectors to force residents to settle their debts as the huge debt us crippling service delivery.

Two month ago, defaulting Gweru residents heaved a sigh of relief after local authority stopped attaching property over debts.

Mayor Councillor Josiah Makombe said litigation seems to be the only way to force the residents to settle their bills.

“We are very much worried that debtors continue to increase and yes there are a number of reasons like we effected a new budget and that saw billing going up and those people who normally default have continued defaulting and it has an impact on our debtors list. We are an informal economy and Covid-19 induced lockdown has affected the informal sector and salaries have been eroded.

“As council, we are also going to intensify collection measures, we once embarked on litigation and gave our people a reprieve to settle their bills and that time has lapsed and if they continue defaulting, anytime soon we will consider litigation,” he said.

GCC spokesperson Ms Vimbai Chingwaramusee said resident’s debt has ballooned to $759 657 662 as at the end of May.

“We are greatly concerned with the debtor’s book figure. As at 30 November 2020 it was $296 300 766 and now $759 657 662 as of May 31 and that is an increase of $463 356 896 in six months and that negatively affects service delivery,” she said.

Ms Chingwaramusee said the council needs approximately $210 million per month to effectively deliver on service to ratepayers.

“Currently we are collecting an average of $143 million per month. If we use collections over billing as a measure of budget performance our performance is 54.08percent,” she said.

Ms Chingwaramusee said the council was not considering reviewing the tariffs downwards.

In January, council effected a 146 percent tariff increase in the approved 2021 budget, which resulted in residents receiving huge bills.

“We would want to do that, unfortunately reducing our tariffs will mean reducing service delivery which will not be good so we would rather charge what we are charging and use the revenue to improve service delivery,” she said.