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Walter Mswazie Masvingo Correspondent
Masvingo City Council has proposed a $32 million budget for 2019 up from $27 million for this year due to a seven percent spike in water and refuse collection tariffs from the previous year.

Presenting the budget statement during a special council meeting in the council chambers on Monday, finance and general purposes committee chairman Councillor Babylon Beta said the budget was crafted on the back of opposing fiscal constraints coupled with inflationary conditions.

“Rates income is expected to increase by a modest seven percent from the new structures coming up,” he said.

“All in all, your budget will be a total of $32 323 183 of which $13 614 821 is capital and $18 708 362 is revenue.”

Cllr Beta hailed council for its financial discipline after incurring capital expenses totaling $12,7 million which is 68 percent of budget.

The local authority also a revenue of $14,7 million for both cash and billing services compared to $19,3 million for budget. “We had an expenditure of $12,7 million against a budget of $18,6 million,” said Cllr Beta.

“Expenditure was restricted to the actual cash collections. Overall, the 2018 budget performance is 68 percent. Our employee costs were 48,7 percent of the total costs compared to 29,3 percent for budget.”

Turning to challenges, Cllr Beta said council was failing to meet its obligations to the Zimbabwe Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), Local Authorities Pension Fund, Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and Masvingo Municipality Medical Aid Society.

“Central Government and parastatal debt continues to increase and this group including institutions owes $23 354 959, 42 as at October 31,” he said.

“Failure to collect debts has resulted in council failing to clear its obligations with its own creditors. We also have aging machinery and experience continuous breakdown due to lack of funding especially for refuse collection.”

Turning to council’s targets, he said the local authority was planning to embark on water augmentation project under Phase Two which will entail the construction of a duplicate water treatment plant at a cost of $50 million.

Cllr Beta said council budgeted $5 million in the current budget and expect the remaining $50 million to be spread over the next four years.