The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Municipal Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council could be setting itself on a collision course with the Government after the city’s Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube, said it will be unnecessary for them to update their valuation roll.
Last week, Minister of Local Government and Public Works, Cde July Moyo ordered all local authorities to, this year, work on their valuation rolls revealing that they had since agreed with the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Professor Mthuli Ncube that 10 percent of the devolution funds sent to councils will be used for this exercise.
Cde Moyo said the valuation roll was critical for local authorities to draw up their Gross Domestic Products which they will then use to improve their fiscal performances. However, in an interview with Sunday News, Mr Dube said that the city’s valuation roll was up to date and it was not necessary to embark on the revaluation exercise, which he said was costly.
This comes at a time when Bulawayo residents have renewed their pleas for the local authority to avail the council asset register, which BCC management has to date failed to make public. Mr Dube said the main reason council felt the revaluation exercise was unnecessary was that there was not much development which had taken place in the city.
“As the Bulawayo City Council our valuation roll is up to date, in fact this is the last year of it being valid because according to the law valuation rolls are valid for 10 years and ours expires this year, where in terms of the law we are now expected to rework on this roll.
“However, we have set down as management, where we have decided that we will write to council saying this revaluation may not give us the desired outcome because there has been very little development in Bulawayo in the last 10 years and mind you the valuation is a continuous exercise which is done every year for anything that comes on board,” he said.
Mr Dube said the move will also be supported by the law as council had to seek authority to continue using the current roll for a further five years. He said that according the Urban Councils Act after 10 years council may seek authority from the Minister of Local Government and Public Works not to do revaluation for as long as that valuation is best saved its purpose.
“Therefore, if council gives us this resolution, we can then approach the Minister, where we will be saying our valuation- as far as we are concerned- still saves the purpose and request a further extension for five years.
“But should the Minister, in his wisdom, feels we should redo the revaluation we will do but it’s not necessary. Further, the revaluation process is very expensive and requires a lot of resources that’s why we may not want to do it,” said Mr Dube.
Residents in the city, have in recent weeks put the local authority to task over the availability of an asset register.
This was after it emerged that the local authority has a property in Burnside which they now want to turn into a mayoral mansion.
