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Manicaland Correspondent
MUTARE City Council is owed over $53 million by residents and other ratepayers, a situation that has contributed to poor service delivery by the local authority. The debt, which has escalated over the years, was pegged at $23 million as at April 31, 2016, but by April 1 this year, it had ballooned to $53 million.

Speaking to residents at the launch of the local authority’s “Maintain up to date promotion”, Mutare Mayor Councillor Blessing Tandi expressed concern over the rising debt.

Under the promotion, council is offering residential stands and television sets as grand prizes for ratepayers who maintain up-to-date accounts.

The competition will run until December 31 this year.
“This is the third promotion we have held to encourage our clients to pay their rates consistently,” said Cllr Tandi. “The first one was in 2013 when we cleared all ratepayers’ debts. We had another promotion in 2014 to encourage our ratepayers to clear their outstanding balances, offering 50 percent discount with the hope we could get $6 million but we only realised $800 000.”
Cllr Tandi said council had no other source of revenue besides ratepayers.

He said the five percent budget allocation from Government would go a long way in boosting the local authority’s coffers.
“We did not bring back the 50 percent discount because we realised we would not be able to generate (enough)revenue to cover the deficit,” said Cllr Tandi. “This is the money that we will use to enhance service delivery for our people; hence we came up with this year’s promotion mainly as a way to plough back to the community, simultaneously encouraging them to pay up.”
Mutare City Council financial director Mr Blessing Chafesuka said council would come up with a registry of bad debtors to ensure that only those who paid for services received them.