Provision of water takes centre stage at budget meeting

Senior Reporter
Bulawayo residents want council to channel more resources in next year’s budget towards addressing the prevailing water and housing challenges facing the city. Bulawayo has been facing perennial water shortages for years because the five supply dams built before independence can no longer satisfy the city’s growing population. This prompted the city council to introduce water shedding in a bid to save the resource.

In their input to the 2014 council budget at a meeting at the Small City Hall yesterday,  residents said water was a key component in the city’s priority areas and urged the city council to increase funding to solve the problem.

“As residents of Bulawayo we are really worried about the water situation that continues to dog our city. We therefore urge the city council in its budget for next year to allocate more money to address the problem,” said Mrs Siphiwe Moyo.

Another resident, Mr Philip Green, said: “Safe and clean water is a critical component in any urban or rural set-up and we are therefore saying the city council should prioritise the provision of enough water to the Bulawayo community.

More money has to be put towards addressing water challenges. We are tired of water shedding and if need be the city council should pump more money so that they are able to rehabilitate the water infrastructure.”

Another resident urged council to avail more money to service stands.
“We have a serious housing backlog in Bulawayo and we urge the city council to ensure that more stands are allocated to thousands of home-seekers. Council should in its budget increase the allocation for housing so that we have more stands being released,” he said.
Residents also took advantage of the meeting to raise complainants on service delivery issues.

A resident from Jabulani Flats had no kind words for the city council.
“The Bulawayo City Council is not doing us any good. Right now as residents of Jabulani Flats we are staying in facilities which lack maintenance. The window panes are broken and our park is no longer looked after yet council recently increased the rent by more than 100 percent without consulting us.

What justifies those increases when everything at the flats is falling apart? This is corruption and we want that problem addressed first before we can talk of raising rent,” he fumed.

The councillor for Ward One, Clr Mlandu Ncube, tried to cool tempers but the emotionally charged man would not have any of it as he continued shouting.

The deputy mayor Councillor Gift Banda saved the situation.
“Let us please confine ourselves to the issues revolving around the budget. We are aware of the problems and we will look into them but for now we are talking of budgetary issues and that has to take centre stage,” he said much to the anger of the resident who continued shouting at the council officials who were facilitating the meeting.

The facilitators from the city council’s housing and engineering departments explained to the residents how the local authority intended to implement next year’s budget as well as the achievements and challenges the local authority was facing in delivering service.

An official from the housing and community service said the council was owed more than $60 million by its debtors, a development that affected service delivery.

The council is also struggling to settle its debt amounting to more than $78 million. This year’s city council budget stands at $168 million to fund major priority services which include water, sewerage, health, housing, roads, public lighting, fire and ambulance and roads.
Bulawayo City Council is conducting consultative meetings in the city’s 29 wards to review this year’s budget performance and determine priorities for 2014.

The meetings, which started on Friday and ending on Saturday, are being facilitated by council officials and respective councillors at specified venues in the wards.

The city council is using primary schools and community halls as venues for the meetings. The council’s senior public relations officer Mrs Nesisa Mpofu urged residents to attend the meetings in large numbers to ensure their input was taken into consideration.

“These are critical meetings that determine the level of service that council will offer and how much residents will be prepared to finance that service.

“It is at these meetings that residents and council would set out priorities for next year,” she said.
Last year, a majority of residents from eastern suburbs and the city centre stayed away from the budget consultation meetings during which council came up with an evaluation roll, which was used to determine rates for these areas.

However, when the rates were implemented at the beginning of the year bills skyrocketed by up to 1 000 percent, sparking an outcry by residents.

Council was then forced to reconvene the consultation meetings and later on slashed the bills. The local authority is struggling to provide efficient service delivery with concerns over poor roads, accommodation and staff shortages, salary arrears,  debts to different service providers and inadequate refuse collection.