Online Reporter
Latwell Nyangu
HARARE Mayor Jacob Mafume says they are not a TOOTHLESS BULLDOG when it comes to dealing with defaulting rate payers and illegal vendors.
He was speaking during a Media Engagement Forum which was facilitated by THE Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services on Wednesday.
Recently, the Council revealed that they are owed ZWG5 billion by residents.
“We are trying to wean people from that addiction of not paying for services rendered.
“We have not all of a sudden lost teeth in our mouth.
“We have various tools to enable us to collect the money.
“The tools are within our Local Government Act and include the attachment and selling of the rate payers’ property should the rate exceed a certain amount, we will go to court.
“Should you go beyond a number of years without paying your rates, we should adopt that approach.
“We have resisted doing that in order to have a humane approach in terms of our collection of our rates but this punishes those who pay,” said Mayor Mafume.
He added:
“When you don’t pay, the one who is punished is the one who faithfully pays every year but we will be targeting those who don’t pay.
“We will go after anyone who doesn’t pay their rates and with all the tools that we have.
“We have also not lost teeth in terms of dealing with vendors, I do hope that this approach will come with consistency in the way we handle the informal sector.
“We don’t have a lack of imagination and teeth on how we can punish errant behaviour but we are trying to adopt a consultative process and a humane approach.
“Should it not work we will have to adopt the hard approach.”
He said they have come up with mechanisms to deal with litter bugs.
“We have created a special unit within our municipal police that will be dedicated towards enforcement of hygiene bylaws.
“This special unit will adopt the tools that we have in order to enforce hygiene behaviour.
“Zimbabweans are very well behaved when they cross the borders, they will be the best citizens wherever they go but when they come back sometimes they will have bad habits.
“You see them throwing litter everywhere and we will be policing such behaviour.
“We have a zero tolerance policy towards corruption among our municipal police ranks, and we would like to encourage whistle blowers to report to us.
“We need to enforce the law, we have bylaws, it is important for the safety of the public. There is no permission for night vending, people are not supposed to operate anywhere in the city.”
