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Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
The Harare City Council has hailed the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) for allocating it US$2,5 million monthly for the purchase of water treatment chemicals. Town clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango said as a result, the city now had enough water treatment chemicals.

He said Harare required between US$2,5 million and US$2,8 million monthly for the chemicals.

“We have that arrangement with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, they are giving us a facility every month but it is given directly to our suppliers. The suppliers submit their request and we act upon those requests and RBZ pays them,” he said.

“The money is not released in a single day. It is paid as and when the suppliers ask for it. In November when we had some delays in the release of funds our stocks were getting low but RBZ has been assisting to make sure our suppliers access foreign currency.”

He said in a normal situation the city could keep stocks of 90 days, 45 days for some and 15 days for the locally manufactured.

Eng Chisango said council has since reduced those times because it does not want to have a lot of capital locked up in stocks.

The town clerk however, said the city was yet to access funds to bring in plant and equipment it acquired last year.

“We have not accessed anything during the past three to four months for the plant and equipment that we bought. We are still talking to the Reserve Bank.”

The city council last year bought various road equipment and 30 refuse compactors from automotive manufacturing company, FAW Group Corporation, for $3,1 million, some of which have been delivered together with five rollers.

The rest of the equipment, which includes 15 refuse compactors, graders and rollers, are still stuck outside the country owing to foreign currency shortages.

Despite the foreign currency shortages, Eng Chisango said council will not charge its services in US dollars.

“Our bills will remain in the currency we have been using. For those who want to pay in US Dollars they are welcome we have opened a Foreign Currency Account as requested by the Reserve Bank and the Ministry of Finance,” he said.