adminAccording to a report from council’s finance department to the finance and development committee, the disconnection exercise was registering limited success as cut off teams met challenges that included being manhandled by residents.
The development has forced council to ask the committee to look into alternative ways of convincing residents to pay bills.
The local authority is struggling to recover $62 million from residents and property owners, more than $4 million from Government departments and about $30 million from companies.
It is faced with escalating debts that have exceeded $65 million.
“It will be recalled that from February 2009, council billed customers in US dollars. In sympathy with the changed environment, council suspended debt collection, resulting in low collection in 2009. The stance taken by council may have created a culture of not paying bills. This culture has seen more than 12 000 customers not making a single payment since 2009,” read the report.
The report shows that of the $177 259 866,13 that was billed in the 36 months from February 2009 to January 2012, only $101 817 936,32 was paid, representing a revenue collection rate of about 57 percent.
The report also shows that the recovery rate for accounts that have been handed over to lawyers is only 40 percent.
About eight major challenges faced by disconnection teams were listed in the report.
“In Cowdray Park, a customer pointed a gun at staff members who were carrying out their work while some residents have threatened staff while carrying out their duties. They let dogs loose or physically threaten staff,” read the report.
The report read that some water meters had stop cocks that were rolling and could not be tightened because they were old, thereby making it impossible to disconnect residents in some sections of the city.
It read that some residents had built walls above stop cocks while others had put concrete around meters, rendering them inaccessible to the teams, while some residents simply locked their gates.
“Some staff members demand or are tempted by customers to accept bribes in exchange for not carrying out their duties. Staff members have been dismissed in the past upon supply of factual evidence by third parties and internal security,” the report read.
“The macro-economic situation is also to blame. Many companies have closed down leaving thousands of workers without a reliable source of income. The liquidity problems require national solution.”
The report shows that in the first three months of this year 20 556 properties were earmarked for disconnection but only 10 888 were disconnected and $542 607 was recovered out of $15 133 863 that was owed.
To increase revenue collection, the local authority has stepped up legal proceedings especially on residents who do not come forward to make arrangements to clear their debts and those who lock their gates.
The report shows that council has opened three customer satellite offices at Cowdray Park, Pumula and Dugmore to bring services closer to residents and encourage them to pay.
“Council has installed a ZimSwitch facility at Revenue Hall where customers can pay their accounts through A Point of Sale machine. The engineering services department provided plumbers to carry out disconnections. Other departments seconded 17 members of staff and two vehicles,” read the report.
A total of 14 504 households and properties were disconnected in May.
Online Reporter