BCC challenged to have youth-friendly budget

Source: BCC challenged to have youth-friendly budget – The Southern Eye

BULAWAYO residents have challenged city fathers to formulate a people-oriented budget.

This follows the announcement that council has had an expenditure of $1,878 billion against the initial budget of $69,578 billion, due to poor debt collection and failure to access funds from banks.

Speaking at a budget performance review meeting on Thursday, residents complained over exorbitant rates that council is charging.

“We ask that our budget be for the people,” one resident said.

“We need affordable rates, license fees and parking fees … we are struggling to pay what is required of us and that is why we want our budget to be more sensitive to the prevailing economic realities.”

Another resident castigated the council for sidelining youths when crafting the budgets.

“Looking at the presentation and how the money was utilised. The question is: Where are the youth?” the resident said.

“Do we have services or programmes in the city of Bulawayo that are particularly sensitive towards young people?”

Acting town clerk Tennyson Mpunzi, however, revealed that all the charges that council puts in place were cost recovery in nature.

“Whatever we provide as a service has already been purchased from our suppliers as we buy a lot of input material from our suppliers. Therefore, if we buy these inputs at a higher price, as a council we are also forced to charge a similar price,” Mpunzi said.

Deputy mayor Mlandu Ncube said the inclusion of the youth in the council budgets was a policy issue.

“Also what we should accept is that the economy is not doing very well and if the economy is not doing well it affects the residents,” Ncube said.

“If the residents are unable to pay because of the situation, the little that council gets is directed to the key areas such as water and electricity.”