The Chronicle

BULAWAYO, Saturday, May 31, 1992 — The 51st meeting of the Urban Councils’ Association of Zimbabwe ended yesterday with a call on the Government to remove price controls on the councils.

The delegates agreed that price decontrol was an important assert for the economic structural adjustment programme and that keeping controls such as rates and rent on councils was contradicting ESAP’s principles.

The meeting also recommended that the Government should review council grants in view of rising costs.

Other recommendations by the association which were made by a group discussing ESAP on Thursday were:

Removal of taxes on council income generating projects. Cost recovery to be applied with discretion. Removal of duty of surtax on essential equipment and donated goods.

Exemption of councils from going through the investment centre for project approval.

On housing, the delegates agreed that more money should be allocated to housing with local authorities establishing revolving funds for housing development. They recommended that:

The private sector should be involved in housing development. Cash flows into building societies should be encouraged through the elimination of interest rate differences between the Post Office Savings Bank and the building societies.

The size of the stands should be reduced from 300 square metres to 200 square metres and the building standards relaxed.

The period of house construction be extended from 24 months to 36 or even five years.

On education, the meeting recommended that the recently passed amendment be repealed to give councils more power to supervise the school development committees including the parents teachers’ associations.

Meanwhile, former Bulawayo mayor Ald Jareth Ndlovu has been elected president of the Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe, replacing Mr Forbes Magadu, the Chitungwiza town chairman.