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THE Victoria Falls Municipality and Mangwe Rural District Council have written off debts owed to them by residents in compliance with the Government directive.The Victoria Falls Council has written off bills amounting to $3. 6 million while Mangwe RDC reversed debts amounting to $2 million.
Victoria Falls acting Town Clerk Mr Phillip Ndlovu yesterday said the municipality had complied with the Government directive to write off bills accumulated between February 2009 and 30 June this year.
“Victoria Falls Municipality has fully complied with the Government directive on domestic write offs. Bills of water, sewer, refuse and rates for individual households have been reversed as per the directive,” said Mr Ndlovu in an interview.
“We are an arm of the Government and we know that the directive is meant to cushion the residents after they failed to settle their bills. The Government has done a common good for the residents and we abide by the directive.”
Mr Ndlovu, however, said $1.5 million owed by the corporate and business sector was not going to be reversed as the sector was not covered by the reprieve.
He appealed to the residents and businesses to settle their bills from July to date in order to assist council maintain its infrastructure and provide essential services.
“Since July some residents have not been paying their bills and we are appealing to them to come forward and settle their bills so that they do not balloon again,” said Mr Ndlovu.
He also urged the Government to assist council by engaging other government institutions like Zesa, Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa), Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) to write off the debts.
“We owe our debtors mainly parastatals like Zesa and Zinwa up to $5million. We are therefore praying that the Government will assist us by asking these parastatals to write off our debts as that move will indeed help us run the municipality smoothly,” said Mr Ndlovu.
“There is new infrastructure in the resort town that was put in place before we co-hosted the just ended United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) general assembly and that infrastructure needs maintenance. It will therefore be very difficult for us to maintain it if we have this $5 million debt hovering over our head,” he said.
Mangwe chief executive officer Mr Nketha Mangoye Dlamini said his council was working on issuing new bills that reflect reversed bills.
“We have complied with the directive from Government as we have written off residents’ bills amounting to $2 million. We are now in the process of coming up with new bills, which show the new status,” said Mr Dlamini.
“We have written off all debts accrued from February 2009 to June 2013 this year. This means that the bills that we are processing charges from the month of July up to now.”
Mr Dlamini said the bulk of the debt was for unit tax payers.
“The debts that we have cancelled comprise rentals, unit taxes, development levies, licences and refuse charges owed by individual rate payers.
We cancelled unit taxes that were being paid by farmers totaling $1,7 million.”
Online Reporter