By Loveness Bepete
BULAWAYO residents owe the city council $90 million for water and rates, a senior official said yesterday.
Mayor, Councillor Martin Moyo said the amount had accumulated from zero last year in August after government ordered all municipalities to cancel debts, to approximately $90 million this year.
The figure is almost double the $46 million that council wrote off, which residents had accumulated between 2009 and 2013 and this, according to the mayor suggests residents may be willfully neglecting to pay bills.
He said the main component which was not being paid were water bills.
“We cancelled peoples’ debts after the government ordered local authorities to do so last year but it’s shocking to find that people still don’t pay for services and the amount has accumulated to $90 million the main component on the bill being water,” said Clr Moyo.
He said the local authority had budgeted to collect $103 million from consumers this year but has only managed to collect $13 million in 10 months.
He added that the outstanding debt was almost the entire council budget.
“We had budgeted to collect $103 million this year to cater for our consumers’ needs and services but we’re failing as we only managed to collect $13 million which isn’t even a quarter of our budget,” he said.
Clr Moyo said poor service delivery was sometimes due to financial constraints the local authority was facing owing to unpaid debts.
He said if the money was to be paid, the local authority would provide quality service.
“If the money was to be availed we wouldn’t be having pot holes, overflowing manholes and litter problems,” he said.
Clr Moyo added the city had a number of dysfunctional and short staffed clinics due to financial constraints caused by consumers who fail to pay their bills.
He advised residents to settle their bills and made reference to a city woman who allegedly died of stress last month because of an accumulated council debt. The Chronicle
