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Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Harare City Council has urged residents to take advantage of the 50 percent discount it is offering to ratepayers up to the end of next month to settle their bills or risk being handed over to debt collectors.

Speaking at a meeting with representatives of residents associations yesterday, acting finance director Mr Stanley Ndemera said council would be justified in engaging debt collectors after the expiry of the window period.

He said council and residents should complement each other to improve services offered by the local authority.

The city is owed almost $800 000 by various stakeholders.

“The ideal situation is where as residents you will be saying we are paying, but council is not delivering, said Mr Ndemera. The moment we say residents are not paying Government will ask us why we are not being drastic in our debt collection.

“So, we thought we should give our residents a reprieve before that phase. Take advantage of the reprieve to clear your debts because I am quite sure that we will be allowed to use debt collectors. That will be the next route and the justification is there.

“We have done all that we can for residents to pay. It should be something like a service charter. We should not be talking about money and giving nothing to residents.”

Mr Ndemera said councils exist to give services to residents, hence they should play their part by paying rates to council.

He said the 50 percent discount programme had seen a marked improvement in the city’s revenue inflows as residents seem to have embraced it.

“Collections have gone up to about 50 percent,” said Mr Ndemera.

“There are now few water cuts. We are no longer having problems acquiring water treatment chemicals because of the current increase in collections. We are well covered as far as water treatment chemicals are concerned.

“Refuse collection, yes, we still have some problems. We have acquired refuse compactors, but the challenge is that we are having some difficulties accessing foreign currency. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has been quite forthcoming, they have made some money available for the procurement of these refuse collection equipment.”

Mr Ndemera said the city was making inroads and was expecting an additional 15 refuse collection trucks to be delivered within three weeks.

He said there was asymmetry of information as residents saw the 50 percent discount differently from the way council had put it across.

“There was a feeling that we were short-changing residents,” said Mr Ndemera.

“Some claimed we had offered a 30 percent discount instead of 50 percent. I have called for this meeting from residents so that we sing from the same hymn  book.”

Under the discount programme, which started from July 23 and ends on October 23 this year, residents get 50 percent discount on what they pay council.

Ms Alma Chiwanga from the Community Water Alliance said the city should improve its service delivery for residents to pay their bills.

“Residents want clean and safe water, she said. Council should improve. If there is an improvement we want it to be visible on the ground.

“We are, however, happy that the programme accommodates everyone who pays something to council.”

Harare Residents Trust programmes officer Mr Reginald Muzimo said a few residents were aware of the programme.

“Some people had their doubts, we will make sure we give them the correct information, he said. There may be need to extend the programme.”