Council apologises to residents

CHITUNGWIZA Municipality has apologised to residents for failing to provide basic services, blaming the situation on low revenue inflows.

The council is collecting only 30 percent from ratepayers and is facing collapse.

It is failing to collect garbage, provide water and other basic services to residents.

This has forced Government to intervene by sending a team of experts to help management turn around the council’s fortunes.

Government also appointed a commission to run the affairs of the council.

Town clerk Mr George Makunde has since been suspended and awaits a hearing.

Chitungwiza Municipality’s finance director Mrs Evangelista Machona apologised yesterday during a budget consultative meeting held at Unit L Hall for the poor service delivery.

“Firstly, we would like to apologise as council for failing to offer you proper service following the attachment of our property by creditors,” she said.

“We would like to thank President Mugabe for intervening when he stopped our creditors from auctioning the property.

“For now we urge you to be patient with us as we are making strides to ensure that everything is in place. As a norm, this is what we do as council on a yearly basis, coming to you for our budget consultations as residents and ratepayers because we cannot plan it without you.

“These consultations are for 2018, but before we delve into that, we need to look at how our 2017 budget performed. After conducting these meetings, those who may want clarity on figures, we are going to leave this information to our area office where the town manager will explain further to you.”

Mrs Machona said the council’s 2017 budget was chaotic.

“It collected only $8 million between January and August this year, instead of the projected $26 million.

“For the remainder of the year, it was supposed to collect $18 million, it only managed to collect $5 million.

“This means we are operating on a negative variance of $12 million and it is only three months remaining till the year end,” said Mrs Machona.

“What is required when we are operating effectively is we should collect 50 percent, but in Chitungwiza we are collecting under 30 percent, meaning to say 70 percent of the population are not paying anything.”

Residents thanked council for the consultations, saying it afforded them a platform to air their views.