Norton residents hold town council to ransom

Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter
Norton Town Council is owed more than $15 million in unpaid rates by residents, who are resisting settling outstanding bills until the local authority starts improving on service delivery.

The myriad of challenges the council is facing has resulted in a fierce confrontation between residents and council’s top executives.

The residence are accusing council top executives of splashing public funds on luxuries at the expense of service delivery.

In an interview with The Herald on Monday, the town secretary, Mr Kizito Muhomba, conceded the situation was dire in the dormitory town.

He said the council was owed $15 million in unpaid utility bills, with more than half of the residents failing or neglecting to service their bills.

The council, Mr Muhomba said, also owed Harare close to $2 million for water supplied.

“At the same time we should be delivering services to our clients, the rate payers,” said Mr Muhomba. “We want to do the best we can, but without resources there is nothing we can do. Resources we use to deliver service come from the people.”

Mr Muhomba said as council, they were facing a series of challenges.

“Roads are in a bad state,” he said. “The town does not have its own portable water. We get our water from Harare. It is rationed and we owe Harare close to $2 million.”

On Monday, Norton legislator Mr Temba Mliswa, led about 100 residents in protest over poor service delivery and corruption among both MDC-T and Zanu-PF councillors.

During the protest march, the Norton Resident Trust chairperson Ms Liziwe Museredza handed a petition to Mr Mliswa.

The petition raised a series of allegations against the council top executives.

Mr Muhomba said council did not tolerate corruption and challenged the residents to bring evidence, if they had any and let the law take its course.

“The law is there to deal with issues of corruption as long there is concrete evidence,” he said.

Mr Muhomba said council could not ignore people’s grievances and urged for comprehensive engagement between the parties to deal with the challenges and chat the way forward.