The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Municipal Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is reportedly in the financial doldrums as the city has failed to improve its monthly cash collection with debts owed by domestic, commercial and the Government departments rising.
On the other hand the local authority also owes various creditors over $135 million, a situation that further pushes it into the red.
According to a financial services report the council is being owed a total of
$142 081 932, with domestic debtors owing $81 809 469, industry and commerce; $54 911 121 and the Government $5 361 342.
According to the report — as at October last year — the local authority collected $5 608 481 of the overall debt which is a drop from the previous average of $5,9 million, which equated to a drop of 2,09 percent in the rate of cash collections
According to the report, of the figure owed to council by various Government departments, the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) owes the greatest chunk of the figure at
$1 911 011 closely followed by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education which owes the local authority $1 299 174.
The local authority on the other hand owes various creditors, including their workers in salaries a total of
$135 087 129. According to the report, the council owes workers a total of $6 873 540 in salary arrears.
The greater chunk of this figure is, however, owed to Zesa, whom the local authority owe $73 229 247. Of the figure the local authority managed to pay just $24 290.
The two service providers have been at each other’s throats for the past six years with the power utility resorting to cutting off supplies from the council’s major buildings while council has also argued that Zesa has for a number of years defaulted in paying royalties.
BCC also owes the Local Authorities Pension Fund (LAPF) $41 261 359, $1 520 290 for Pay As You Earn,
$1 529 416 for their medical aid facility, $1 644 839 for Trade Creditors,
$4 750 963 to various financial institutions and $1 627 254 for the Standard Development Loan.
Other service providers they owe are NSSA ($368 991), Zimbabwe Urban Councils Workers Union ($125 602), Zimdef ($29 860), funeral policies
($1 740 382) and TelOne ($388 673).
In deliberating council’s financial woes, councillors suggested taking the route of disconnecting water supplies to consumers who fail to pay what they owe to the local authority.
“Discussion ensued and Councillor James Sithole observed that the 50 percent incentive was only extended to the industrial and commercial sector leaving out the domestic sector. Because of the economic challenges, rate payers had found it difficult to pay their rates. Council should therefore consider re-introducing the 50 percent incentive.
“Councillor Collet Ndhlovu felt that water should be cut off if consumers failed to pay what was due to council. Council had failed to offer proper service delivery because of poor revenue collection. Residents with genuine problems should approach their councillors for advice,” reads part of the report.
Contacted for comment the Mayor, Clr Martin Moyo, said it was essential for people to pay off their debts noting that it was unfortunate that residents, industry and Government departments were lagging behind in paying their debts, which had seen their indebtedness to the local authority ballooning.
He said it was important to note that the council was a service provider and in most cases they had to incur a cost in order to carry out that service hence the need for people to support the local authority through paying off their debts.
“It is unfortunate that people are usually the first to criticise us when they feel we are lagging behind in terms of service delivery but what they tend to forget is that in order for us to give them satisfactory services we need financial injection and the only way we can raise this money is through them paying their rates and rentals.
“Honestly if people are failing to pay off what they owe it would be difficult for us to provide satisfactory services, just think if we manage to get everything that is owed to us we will go a long way in addressing some areas that have been overlooked because of lack of funds,” said Clr Moyo.
He said the local authority also had a number of financial obligations it had to address and at the end of the day it went on to affect council’s service delivery endeavour as while they tried to push service delivery they also had to pay off what they owed other service providers.
