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Clr Fidze

Walter Mswazie Masvingo Correspondent
Masvingo City Council has waived interest charges on all residents’ outstanding water bills to encourage the payment of debts. City mayor Councillor Hubert Fidze yesterday told The Herald that the cash strapped local authority was owed more than $40 million in outstanding water bills by residents, industries and Government departments. He said Government departments contributed 50 percent to the debt, while residents, institutions and industry shared the other 50 percent.

“We have waived interest charges on all outstanding water debts owed by our residents starting from October 1 until March 2018 . We are doing this to motivate them to settle their dues,” he said. Cllr Fidze said council was optimistic that Treasury, which had so far committed to settle Government departments’ debts, would live up to its promise. Masvingo City Council, he said, was finding it hard to meet its obligations due to the low rate at which the local authority collected revenue from its clients.

“Our collection rate is currently at 67 percent and it shows that we have a big number of our clients who are not paying. We have engaged debt collectors to help us recover these debts as a last resort, but our desire is for our debtors to come forward and make payment plans without charging them any interest,” he said Cllr Fidze urged residents and ratepayers to take advantage of the waiver to settle their outstanding bills.

“We are mindful of the prevailing economic hardships, hence ignoring the accruals on the debts for a period of six months.  We are also fortunate that Government has committed itself to settle debts owed by its departments before the end of this month. Treasury asked all councils to submit the Government departments’ bills and we have since done that,” he said. According to the latest council minutes, city treasurer Mrs Thandiwe Dube told a full council meeting that they needed to incentivise debtors through waiving interest on outstanding water debts to motivate the payment of bills.

“It was agreed that council would suspend charging of interest on all outstanding accounts for the period of October 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018,” reads part of the full council minutes. “A total exemption of interest would be given to debtors who settled their debts in one off payment.”