Financial Gazette (Harare)
Charles Rukuni
13 September 2008
Bulawayo — City fathers have decided to use their local legislators to pressurise the government to pay its debt to the council and might publish the names of individuals who are not paying their bills to embarrass them and get them to pay.
Government departments owed the council $676.3 billion at the beginning of the year, which was quite a lot of money at the time but now translates to only $67,63.
Speaking at the full council meeting, Clr Phinias Ndlovu complained that government was not paying its debt on time resulting in the council losing a lot of revenue as the debt was rapidly eroded by inflation, yet it was at the forefront of blaming the council for failing to deliver services.
Though residents owed the council much more, $16.4 trillion (now $1 640), Clr Ndlovu asked how could government expect the residents to honour their debt when it was failing to honour its.
The mayor Clr Thaba Moyo said he had held discussions with heads of government departments briefing them on what they owed and hoped they would pay their debts.
"Fortunately for us, our acting town clerk is a civil servant.
"She will help us because she knows how to get these people to pay," he said.
The mayor said what was disturbing was that the money was losing its value yet government and ratepayers were not charged any penalty for delaying to pay.
"I think we should look at ways of getting the true value for our money because these people are not paying on time and when they pay, they pay us the amount that they originally owed, which would have been eroded by inflation," the mayor said.
"I also think it is high time we used our Members of Parliament to get the government to pay us our money," he said to applause from the Movement for Democratic Change(MDC)-dominated council.
There are 23 MDC-T and six MDC-Mutambara councillors in the new council elected in March. ZANU-PF lost all its seats. The two MDCs also control parliament with 110 seats out of 210.
At least three legislators were in the chamber when the mayor made his appeal. They were Lobengula MP, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, Magwegwe MP, Felix Sibanda and Mzilikazi senator Matson Hlalo, a former councillor and alderman.
Parliament is on recess until next month.The mayor said the council might also publish the names of all those who had not paid their bills.
"This might get some people to pay because if we publish their names this will embarrass them and they do not want to be embarrassed," he said.
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