Bulawayo Residents Decry Slashing of Bills
They said this decision will severely curtail any meaningful service provision by the LA’s, a development that will disturb their daily routines and livelihoods in the long term.
“This might seem a good thing when one looks at it from the surface. However, if you look at it deeply, you will find out that it will cripple service delivery by the City Council, as it has lost a huge sum of revenue. It will now struggle to pay its employees and we are going to experience the brain drain that was evident around 2008. Moreover, there will be no fuel to collect litter and to fix sewer bursts. The city is going to be a horrible site again. It was a short sighted decision by Minister Chombo,” said Elizabeth Mutereko from Ward 24 (Nketa 6, 8 and a part of Nkulumane 5).
Bulawayo City Council lost revenue exceeding US$46 million when Government ordered all the 69 urban and rural LA’s to slash bills that dated from 2009 up to June 30th 2013.
This decision was labelled by Civic Society Organisations, and other stakeholders, as “cheap vote buying” due to the fact that it was made and announced in the run up to the July 31st disputed crunch elections that saw the end of the Government of National Unity.
The residents feel that they should have been consulted; through their respective associations and that the LA’s should have also been engaged in the process, so that an amicable way forward would be crafted.
“What the minister should have done was to consult the Councils and negotiate how much they could slash and remain viable. They could have slashed up to 2011 or something like that but no consultations were made and the end result will be an utter disaster,” said, John Gwiriri, from Old Pumula (Ward 19).
Other residents said this decision is beginning to promote a bad culture among the residents, as the minister essentially rewarded bad debtors and rubbished the frantic efforts of law abiding citizens to pay their dues.
“There are many aspects to look at when talking about this issue. To start with, no one will want to pay their debts now because those who have been paying are feeling cheated and they are now refusing to pay, saying they will also let their bills accumulate and be slashed in some years to come. This puts the City Council in a sacrificial position, as it will not have any revenue to talk about,” said Virginia Nyathi another Ward 24 resident.
This critical analysis and concern about service delivery by ordinary residents, is a clear sign of the positive effects of ZDDT facilitated training, which familiarises the residents with Council operations as a way of creating solid relationships between ordinary citizens, their policy makers and the local government administrators thereby creating the “...one people, one city, one nation,...” mind set.