The Sunday News
Tinomuda Chakanyuka Sunday News Reporter
GWERU City Council has threatened to take legal action against defaulting rate payers as the local authority grapples to recover millions of dollars it is owed in unpaid water bills.
This comes just a week after the local authority was taken to court by 25 residents who sought to have council barred from disconnecting water without a court order. A Bulawayo High Court judge earlier this month issued a provisional order in favour of the residents directing Gweru City Council to stop water disconnections and immediately restore water supply to disconnected residences.
The provisional order was issued pending finalisation of the residents’ urgent chamber application.
Gweru City Council spokesperson Mr Tapiwa Marerwa told Sunday News last week that while the local authority was preparing to challenge the residents’ urgent court application, it was also considering issuing defaulting residents with summons and hand them over to debt collectors.
He said council had complied with the High Court provisional order and had reconnected water supply to properties that had been disconnected.
“Naturally we will challenge that court application. Actually we are in the process of crafting our challenge which will be filed in due time. We are a law abiding council and we have complied with the court order and reconnected the few houses that had been cut off.
“We are now considering a number of legal options that we can pursue to recover what we are owed. Soon we will start issuing defaulters with summons and hand them over to debt collectors.
“Some of the residents owe us monies that amount to the values of their houses and may lose their properties if we take that route,” he said.
Mr Marerwa said in as much as council understood that water was a human right, residents should also appreciate that there were a lot of costs that came with pumping of water, costs that could only be met if residents paid their bills.
He urged residents to come forward and make payment plans with the local authority to avoid having their properties attached should council start litigation against defaulters.
Mr Marerwa revealed that council owed its service providers huge sums of money, debts which it was struggling to service owing to cashflow constraints.
Gweru City Council has reportedly accumulated an electricity bill of over $5 million over the past five years.
“It’s unfortunate that even after Government instructed us to write off debts, even after we have offered discounts, some residents still continue to use water for free. Some have come forward with payment plans but some are ignoring as if nothing is happening.
“Water disconnections have always been there serving as reminders that one needed to pay up whatever they owed us, but as the situation stands right now we will take the legal route,” he said.
Earlier this month a Gweru resident Lizzy Zvenyika led 24 others in making an urgent court application seeking to have Gweru City Council’s water disconnection exercise declared unlawful.
Justice Makonese, in granting a provisional order in favour of the residents pending finalisation of the matter, gave the local authority 24 hours to comply after being served with the order.
The local authority was also given 10 days from the day of being served with the order to challenge the residents’ court application.
Section 77 of the country’s constitution guarantees water and food as basic human rights.
Gweru City Council which is owed about $24 million by residents, has been battling to pay workers’ salaries on time for the past five years.
The local authority has recurrently clashed with workers over non-payment of salaries with the tension heightening in April this year when workers started staging daily demonstrations in protest.
The local authority is reportedly collecting about $1 million in revenue every month against a monthly salary bill of more than $1,2 million.
Last month councillors in Gweru seemed not to agree on the decision to disconnect water supplies to defaulting residents, with some councillors led by Mayor Hamutendi Kombayi calling for engagement between council and ratepayers.
In January this year, Gweru residents staged protests against council’s decision to hand them over to debt collectors for outstanding bills.
Last month the residents also wrote a petition to council urging the local authority to concentrate on service delivery and desist from terrorising residents.
