City boss blames Residents Associations for revenue collection failure
By Delicious Mathuthu
Gweru City Council Acting Town Clerk has sensationally claimed that Residents Associations in the city are discouraging their members from servicing their bills which is contributing to the local authority’s low revenue.
The acting city boss, Livingston Churu, speaking during the 703rd full council meeting at Town House last Tuesday (06/02/2024) fingered residents representatives accusing them of defending none paying residents.
The local authority, which is heavily burdened by a ballooning monthly debt from none paying residents, businesses and parastatals, is now estimated to be about Zwl$60 billion.
In an effort to recover the debts through different means which include notices, letters of demand, summons, including property attachments for those who ignore their calls, Churu claimed that residents representatives are discouraging their members from visiting Town House to make payment plans to service their bills.
“The issue of debt collection is not a one day issue. When people now start losing their property it actually would have run for something like six months.
“We start with a notice calling you so that we talk, the person doesn’t come; we get to the letter of demand, the person doesn’t come; we get to summons, they don’t come then when we get to property attachments thats when you see the person but at that point it would be too late,” Churu said.
“Then one of the issues is that vanhu vedu vakanyanyo representwa nema organisations aya anorepresenta ma-residents zvakanyanya (our people are represented by those organisations that represent residents too much), to the extent that they are being discouraged to come to ma-offices edu (our offices),” he said.
Churu said when it gets to property attachments it would be out of their hands but that of the Messenger of Court.
He said residents should respond to council calls and not wait till the ‘tail end’.
Speaking to Kwedu News in response to Churu’s claims, two of the most active Residents Associations representatives in Gweru said the utterance by the city boss is unfortunate and ignorant of their mandate as associations.
“Its rather unfortunate for a whole Acting Town Clerk to say such things. He has never done any research, whatever he is saying is baseless and its not informed by anything, or by any reality,” Gweru Residents and Ratepayers Association (GRRA) Executive Director, Cornilia Selipiwe said
He said using a blanket term to refer to residents associations without singling out any that he claims are doing so is unfortunate as he has never heard of any association doing so.
“One of the things that we believe in as GRRA, and other residents associations that I have worked with that are hear in Gweru is servicing our bills; I have never heard of any residents association that advocates for none payment.
“I have never heard of any residents association that would gather its membership and say don’t pay your bills to the local authority,” said Selipiwe.
He said their bone of contention with Council is on estimated bills, the billing system, poor refuse collection, poor water provision and the general poor state of services, which does not equate to discouraging residents from servicing their bills.
“We always raise pertinent issues, we always ask very serious questions that need to be answered like why are they still estimating, what are the issues, we have questions around the billing system, we have questions around refuse collection even provision of water,” he said.
“So having questions and complaining about the quality of service that we are getting doesn’t really mean to say we are saying residents should not pay their bills.
“These are desperate words said by people who have failed to collect, who have failed to do their jobs; you know a bad carpenter will always blame his tools.
“… Their is no evidence whatsoever and I doubt and bet with my last cent that their is no residents association in Gweru that would encourage people not to pay,” Selipiwe said.
As an organisation, Selipiwe said they are on record doing demonstrations through paying and they are soon coming up with a billboard that speaks to residents servicing their bills.
Also responding to the Acting Town Clerk’s claims, speaking on behalf of the Gweru United Progressive Residents and Ratepayers Development Association (GUPRARDA), the Director, Pastor David Chikore said his organisation is on record publicly urging residents to service their bills.
Like Selipiwe, he said the organisation’s queries is on the shambolic billing system that sees residents being forced to pay for services not rendered.
“We have been unequivocal on our position around the issue of estimated water bills and the fact that council has no moral ground to be suing defaulters based on amounts which have an accumulation of the controversial estimates component,” he said.
“If for any reason such sentiments can be misconstrued for urging residents not to honour council bills, then it’s unfortunate,” Pastor Chikore said.
He said pointing fingers will not help but dealing with estimated bills which are contributing to the so believed huge debt.
“In addressing the debtors bill Town House should stop the blame game and instead seek to expeditiously scrap out the estimated water bills issue because, in our opinion, this is contributing immensely to the ever increasing debt.
“It is having the negative effect of discouraging consumers from servicing the aggregated bill, so the blame for the poor collection rate starts and ends at our obstinate Town House which refuses to look itself in the mirror and take advice from stakeholders,” Pastor Chikore said.
He went on to say Town House’s obsession with billing consumers using estimates for commodities that, except in recent days, rarely reaches the greater percentage of households is a great put off.
During the same full council meeting, Churu acknowledged that the local authority indeed does not have a reliable modern billing system as the current one being used is slow and has human interface challenges which exposes it to errors.
Churu said the challenge is that there is no software specifically made for council billing in the country, a system which integrates all revenue streams and interacts with customers in real time.
He however said the city’s Information Technology (IT) Department is currently working on developing a more reliable billing system from the current one.
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