via RadioVop Zimbabwe – Harare City Council Owed $280m 14 September 2014
The Harare City Council says despite the writing off of the $330 million debt its debtors continue to grow and it is currently owed US$278.2 million.
Despite the writing off of the debt by the government in July last year, council says residents have continued defaulting with those in the high density suburbs owing the city fathers US$70 million while those in the low density areas owe council US$50 million.
The government and parastatals owe a total of US$17.2 million while dormitory towns of Chitungwiza, Norton, Ruwa and Epworth owe the council a total of US$4.1 million.
In his presentation at the 2015 consultative budget meeting, Harare City Council Acting Finance Director Tendai Kwenda said as a result of the money it is owed the Harare City Council has outstanding payments amounting to millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the Harare City Council has raked in US$500 000 from the Easipark deal and US$750 000 from City Park.
The contributions from the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority are said to have remained insignificant at US$1.2 million in the past year.
COMMENTS
No salvation in sight I’m afraid to say
Cut your salary you malingerer.
In Zimbabwe Mugabe has instilled the doctrine that everything is for free . Keep at it the govt can borrow some more to pay bloated executive salaries.
Just who is going to pay back these shortfalls, beware, ratepayers, they will try and slip in increases…..they (management and govt) are responsible and the individuals themselves should be made accountable…
To start with with,charges by the city council are way too infated(to cover fat pay cheques for the executives) and unaffordable for the general public. In any case, the same charges do not correspond to service delivery by the city fathers! The city should align charges to those of other countries in the region.
Harare City has a shortage of water meter readers and hardly reads residential water meters. It is fact that what Harare City claims it is owed, 60 to 70 percent of the outstanding debts by residents is based on estimates. Besides water taps are dry most of the times and if they happen to be wet, the water only drips out while the bigger volumes of water gashes out through pipe burst. I challenge Harare City to give each account holder a breakdown of how much was written off and to what date and also give the date of new bills commencement for comparison sake.
I daresay there many ratepayers who are not prepared to subsidize the kinds of salaries that were revealed to be maintained by management in Harare and several other municipalities.
As in industry and government, sadly the lower ranks will continue to be paid a pittance as part of the overall system.
If the debtors mentioned come to just over $140m then who owes the balance? People are still angry over the high salary levels at the HCC yet we continue to receive sub standard services.