The ManicaPost
Abel Zhakata
Senior Reporter
MUTARE City Council is disconnecting water supplies to defaulting ratepayers as the local authority moves to recover the $170 million it is owed by both businesses and residents.
Since last week, council has been issuing 24-hour final notices demanding full payment of arrears, failure of which water supplies have been disconnected.
Town Clerk Mr Joshua Maligwa said although there is a marked improvement in the payment of rates by households, business entities are still not playing ball.
“Residents are servicing their accounts better than businesses. We can say 70 percent of households are paying their debts. However, we have problems with commercial entities who have not been paying anything to council for years now,” he said
“On a daily basis we are collecting an average of $2 million but that amount is not enough to cover our expenses. Our revenue collection levels are not matching our expenditure. For example our salary bill is too high despite the dwindling disposable income for our workers.
“Mutare has some cash flow challenges and this is badly affecting service delivery since the bulk of the money we collect is going towards salaries,” he said.
Mr Maligwa said council will soon engage lawyers to collect what it is owed by defaulters.
“We don’t want to take this route as it strains our relationships with ratepayers but considering the problems we are facing and the fact that most businesses are not paying up, we are left with no option but to engage our lawyers and force people to make payments,” he said.
The Covid-19 pandemic has crippled council’s revenue collection channels following the closure of most informal businesses that also contribute immensely in terms of rate payments.
With beer outlets and other recreational facilities having been closed since March, this has had a telling effect on council’s revenue collection.
