adminMichael Magoronga Midlands Correspondent
Kwekwe City Council is seeking to double its initial $26,2 million budget for 2019 in a development that is set to further strain the residents most of whom were already struggling to pay their bills.
Speaking during a consultative meeting at a local hotel on Tuesday, the city’s acting director of finance, Mr January Mkandapi said the initial $26,2 million budget had been rendered useless by runaway inflation and ever increasing operational costs driven mainly by speculative parallel market rates and price hikes.
Mr Mkandapi said under the new supplementary budget, council proposes to hike sewer tariffs by 100 percent from $5 to $10 for high-density suburbs while refuse has been raised from $3 to $9 for the same area.
The local authority has proposed to peg water charges at $2,70, up from $0,80 per cubic litre while fire levy has been proposed at $1,70 up from $0,70, across the board.
Speaking during a consultative meeting with the business community at King Solomon’s Hotel on Tuesday, Acting Finance Director said, “We are failing to meet our service delivery obligations as the tariffs were now way below costs.
“Our 2019 budget was prepared based on a 1:1 rate as you might be aware. But as we speak inflation is hovering above 150 percent up from 5 percent when we prepared the budget. Therefore, the current budget cannot sustain council operations hence we have had to come with a supplementary budget,” he said.
He said fuel prices and that of water treatment chemicals had ballooned out of proportion rendering the current budget useless. “Our ability to provide effective service delivery has not been put under threat by the prices ladies and gentlemen. Supplier of water treatment chemicals are demanding cash up front and in forex while it is now difficult for council to offer basic services like refuse collection or road maintenance due to unaffordable fuel prices that have more than trebled by the time we prepared the 2019 budget,” said Mr Mkandapi.
He said the supplementary budget was in line with the parent ministry’s directive.
“We are doing this supplementary budget not out of our own making but we have the blessings of the government who asked us to prepare a supplementary budget. We therefore are confident that the budget is not going to take time to be passed as it is something government is already expecting,” he said. Business people who attended the meeting, quickly adopted the budget and urged council to come up with permanent income generating projects that come to the council’s aid in tough times.
Council was also urged to craft an advisory committee made up of local business people to assist the local authority in business and income generating projects.
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