Chronicle Editor
Michael Magoronga, Midlands Correspondent
ZIBAGWE Rural District Council (RDC) says it is owed a total of ZWL$216,9 million by different debtors as at 31 March 2022 and the figure keeps ballooning each month.
On one hand the council owes about ZW$54 million to its creditors.
In a statement during a recent full council meeting, chief executive officer, Mr Farayi Desmond Machaya, said the local authority was engaging with debtors as it seeks to stimulate revenue collection.
He said the development was affecting service delivery by the local authority, which is now contemplating employing a revenue clerk to complement debt recovery efforts.
“Engagement with our debtors is a routine exercise that we do in order to stimulate revenue collection. Most of our debtors are in over 102 days in arrears and our creditors are paid on a monthly basis in 30 days,” said Mr Machaya.
“The widened gap is affecting our ability to settle our obligations as they fall due and that is causing the council to incur higher financing costs in the form of interest and penalties due to late payments.
“Our deliberate strategy is to employ a revenue clerk in the next month that will complement the debt collection section and update our database.”
Mr Machaya said for the first quarter of the year, the budget performance stood at 27 percent as compared to 30 percent for the same period in 2021.
“The total revenue realised for the first quarter of 2022 is $30 403 862,64 against a quarterly budget of $113 572 253,30, which translates to 27 percent budget performance,” he said.
“In 2021our first quarter budget performance was 30 percent. Month on month revenue increased from January 2022 to February 2022 by 52 percent and 59 percent fall in revenue was witnessed in March 2022,” said Mr Machaya.
In 2021, the budget performance was 38 percent.
“Our local budget increased from $416 795 200 to $454 296 025. Effectively our budget increased by 37 473 824, which is nine percent increase,” he explained.
“This was after we had a meeting with the Minister of Local Government and National Housing Hon July Moyo where we were tasked to justify our budget estimates before a panel.
“We had to factor in ZINARA budget allocation of $43 million, which we have received 10 percent of at the beginning of the week,” said Mr Machaya.
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