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Tawanda Mangoma in Chiredzi
Chiredzi Town Council has issued an ultimatum to residents and ratepayers who are owing it to visit its offices by Friday and agree on payment plans or face legal action. Council is also under pressure from its employees who are demanding at least four months’ salary payout after clocking eight months without being paid.

Council secretary Mr Charles Muchatukwa yesterday said they had written final warnings to the residents pending legal action if they did not utilise the window period.

“Council is continuously engaging residents towards the opening of payment plan agreements and files that will help council recover more than $10 million owed by our residents and ratepayers. We understand that some residents have queries regarding their bills and we have continued to urge them to come forward and discuss with us towards fruitful agreements,” he said.

Mr Muchatukwa said council had obligations, including the workers who were threatening to go on strike if their demands were not met.

“We need the residents, business community and Government departments to join hands with us as we seek to solve the crisis. December 15, 2017 is our final date to undertake negotiations with residents,” he said.

“We anticipate that everyone would have set a payment plan with our office since we extended the programme from December 1 to December 15. We hope that everyone got the message since we had to undertake a door-to-door delivering of the message. Our next step would be engaging the courts if dialogue fails to yield anticipated results.”

Chiredzi Residents and Rate- payers’ Association chairman Mr Jonathan Muusha said council should switch to prepaid water meters. He said residents in some wards were not paying for water because they had not received it in a decade.