Vungu RDC accuses GCC of greed, unfair play

Patrick Chitumba, [email protected]

VUNGU Rural District Council (RDC) has come out guns blazing, accusing Gweru City Council (GCC) of alleged unfair play and greediness over property taxes which the latter is collecting.

Vungu RDC, which superintends all areas in Gweru District outside GCC boundaries, has noted with concern efforts by the local authority to allegedly incite discontent among residents so that they rise against the RDC.

The two local authorities have crossed swords over the collection of property taxes in peri-urban settlements that have mushroomed around the Gweru boundary, namely Mtausi Park, Hertfordshire, Ridgemont Heights, Adelaide Park, Northgate Heights, Tatenda Park, Claremont, Woodlands, Little Eden, and Raylands.

While acknowledging there is no boundary dispute between Vungu RDC and GCC, Vungu RDC chief executive officer, Mr Alex Magura, said their differences emanate from the fact that the city council has been behaving as if the peri-urban areas have already been incorporated into the city’s jurisdiction.

“We have objected to Gweru City Council collecting property taxes from these areas because property taxes should be collected by the local authority under whose jurisdiction the areas in question fall, Vungu RDC in this instance,” he said.

“There is, however, an arrangement whereby the city council can provide certain services such as water and sewer reticulation and refuse collection. GCC can therefore charge and collect user charges for these services but not property taxes,” he said.
Mr Magura said they recently saw a move by GCC to increase user charges for the agreed services to astronomical levels on the pretext that those are the charges that apply for out-of-boundary users.

“From where we stand, this is a deliberate ploy by the city council to incite residents to resist paying property taxes to Vungu RDC, thereby opening the space for the city to continue illegally collecting the taxes, licence fees, and other charges that should rightfully and legally be collected by Vungu RDC.

“Our position is that Vungu RDC should have the space to collect what is due to it so that it can offer the services required by residents,” he said.
Mr Magura said peri-urban areas have always been under the rural council boundaries in terms of Proclamations 15 and 26 of 1993. He said there are more than 15 housing developments that fall in the peri-urban areas and as the city council provides them with water and sewer services, people in these areas have come to believe they fall within the boundaries of Gweru City Council.

“It is, however, unfortunate that some residents of these areas continue to deliberately delude themselves that they fall under the city council’s jurisdiction and thus continue to accumulate arrears,” said Mr Magura.
He said this year, the council, like it has done for the past five years, reached out to residents through budget consultation meetings, including peri-urban areas.

“The proposal is for tariffs to generally remain at their 2024 levels. Increments that may come will be in the case of property taxes whereby we are proposing to move away from development levies to property taxes based on valuation rolls,” he said.
Vungu RDC, he said, has prepared valuation rolls for places like Insukamini, Muchakata, Somabhula, other rural service centres, and peri-urban areas.

Speaking during the 2024 GCC budget review meeting recently, deputy director of finance, Mr Owen Masimba, said although Hertfordshire, Ridgemont Heights, and Raylands, among others, were outside the city boundary, development permits in the areas were approved by the city council.

He said Vungu RDC had this year made an about-turn and requested that those out-of-boundary residential areas revert to the rural council and start paying tariffs to them instead.

“They are allowed at law because those suburbs are outside Gweru City Council boundaries, so we cannot disagree,” he said.
“We agreed that they go but unfortunately, most of the urban services they want can only be accessed from Gweru and as such we are supposed to charge an economic tariff to make sure we recover the cost,” he said.
Mr Masimba said due to the fact they were no longer sharing costs with the generality of Gweru citizens, they would pay more.

“The tariffs are different, it is cheaper within and expensive outside,” he said.