Chronicle Editor
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has since the beginning of the year been receiving various amounts from special accounts including beer levy, Zimbabwe National Road Authority (Zinara) funds and parking revenue, thereby boosting its revenue collection.
The special levies are governed by various legislations and have to be ring-fenced with their use also guided by the country’s laws. According to the latest council report, the beer levy, which is paid by producers of traditional beer within the jurisdiction of the local authority — in this case, Delta Beverages and Ingwebu Breweries- the city has a closing balance of US$41 569 and ZiG558 278, so far this year.
“The Traditional Beer Act mandates producers of traditional beer to remit to local authorities a portion of their sales income based on the volumes sold under the jurisdiction of each local authority. Council is receiving beer levy from Delta and other producers of traditional beer,” reads the report.
The Traditional Beer Act states that these levies shall be held in a separate account from the local authority’s accounts and not form part of the general revenues of the local authority, with the Government giving guidance on the use of the ring-fenced money.
“The minister may, after consultation with the local authority concerned, direct a local authority to pay to any of its housing accounts established in terms of Section 301 of the Urban Councils Act such portion as the minister may direct of the annual amount of controlled liquor money available for expenditure by the local authority concerned after provision is made for any amount expended or to be expended on the brewing, purchasing, distributing, selling or supplying of traditional beer, liquor or refreshments by the local authority,” reads the Act.
According to the report, which was presented on 20 May, for April the local authority made a total of US$96 875, in parking management, when all the currencies were converted to USD. In total, the local authority, since January, has made US$775 579, ZAR419 730, P8 347 and ZiG633 026 for parking.
For clamping fines, the local authority made US$26 665, ZAR13 452 and ZiG51 877 for the month of April. Cumulatively, since January, the local authority has made US$404 923, ZAR223 469, P2 303 and ZiG265 649 in clamping fines. All in all, together with bus charges, towing fees, storage costs and payment of various packages, cumulatively, the local authority has made US$1,2 million, ZAR732 790, P10 803 and ZiG1 million from the parking system management contract with Tendy Three Investments, since January.
The Bulawayo City Council (BCC) and TTI entered into a partnership in 2021 that has seen the latter rolling out the parking management system throughout the Central Business District (CBD), with the first paid bays coming into effect in February 2022.
Although the system was met with resistance from motorists and the public, TTI has managed to realise an improvement in revenue collection. According to the agreement, TTI gets 70 percent of the revenue collected from parking fees with BCC left with 30 percent. For clamping, while initially the local authority was meant to get 100 percent of the fees, they are now sharing at 50 percent each as the two entities were jointly conducting the clamping duties.
Online Reporter