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Fungai Lupande Mashonaland Central Bureau
The Bindura Municipality has started implementing austerity measures as it moves to streamline its expenditure to ensure that it contributes to the realisation of Vision 2030 of transforming Zimbabwe into an upper middle-income economy, Town Clerk Mr Shangwa Mavesera has said.

Mr Mavesera said they were now prioritising the allocation of fuel to service vehicles, while trips for council officials would be granted after consideration of their importance.

“We realised that our budget is based on mid 2018 prices, which have since tripled,” he said.

“The prices of fuel, which is a basic in our operations, have also increased.

“Following Government’s austerity measures, we have come up with our own cost-cutting measures so that we lead in achieving Vision 2030.

“We realised that if we are to hike prices for service delivery like water and refuse collection, the public may not afford.

“We looked at our cost drivers and we decided to cut expenditure on our staff to levels where we will still be able to provide services.

“Money allocated for fuel remains the same, meaning we are now using less fuel.

“We have identified vehicles that will be allocated normal fuel supply, the refuse collection truck, tipper and water and sewer vehicles.

“We will, however, reduce the times we collect domestic refuse, but we will educate the residence first on separation of waste. Supervision vehicles have been reduced to three and we are now doing team supervision.

“Fuel allocation for officials for personal use has been reduced.”

Mr Mavesera said the municipality would now only sponsor trips to meetings and events organised by Government or Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe (UCAZ), while building inspectors would only be allowed to go out three days a week.

“We will consider trips that are critical, but we will not sponsor any trips other than those organised by Government or UCAZ,” he said.

“Where possible, our officials will travel in groups to cut costs.

“Building inspections were consuming a lot of fuel and we have reduced inspections to Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Our inspectors will only go out when there is enough work.

“We have stopped photocopying antenatal cards for our patients.

“They will do that themselves, while we concentrate on providing them with medication. We are going to be a paperless organisation and we have agreed to buy iPads for all councillors.”

Mr Mavesera said they were also going to follow up on the $17 million that they were owed by ratepayers.