Marondera RDC proposes $500k supplementary budget

MARONDERA Rural District Council has proposed a $500 000 supplementary budget following the pronouncement by the Finance Ministry of giving back to local authorities the responsibility of collecting rentals and land development levies from A1 and A2 farmers.

The rural local authority had recently proposed a $1,4 million budget for 2018. Presenting the budget statement during a full council meeting in Marondera yesterday, the finance committee chairman Councillor Tonderayi Kwaramba said the envisaged main performing accounts would be roads and works.

“Our proposed supplementary budget seeks to raise $505 767, the major anticipated sources being rates and fees from approval of designs for development project,” he said.

“We, therefore, propose to spend $504 862 towards all our expenses and remain with a surplus of $905.”

Clr Kwaramba applauded the decision by Government to give back local authorities the responsibility of collecting revenue and vowed to improve on service delivery. “Let me hasten to say this budget was necessitated by the proposed restoration of one of our traditional streams, the responsibility to collect (rentals and land development levies from A1 and A2 farmers) was transferred to the Ministry of Lands in 2015,” he said.

“We were seriously affected by this development as it took a very large chunk off our budget. Though the min- istry was supposed to collect farm rates on our behalf and remit the funds to us, money coming through was insufficient and could not meaningfully contribute to our budgetary requirements.”

Clr Kwaramba said the council had accrued debts as it failed to honour responsibilities as they fell due.

“We had no peace of mind as we were always haunted by the possibility of losing assets to creditors,” he said.

“Statutory obligation accrued to chocking levels. Employees who had left council were affected as they could not access their pensions due to our failure to remit the much needed contributions.”

Government recently gave back the responsibility to collect rentals and land development levies from A1 and A2 farmers to rural local authorities.

This new policy directive will be operationalised beginning next year.

In 2015, the previous administration gave the green light for the Lands Ministry to take over the collection of land rentals and unit tax from all A1 and A2 farmers following reports that some rural district councils ( RDCs) were abusing the money. The RDCs indicated then that giving the responsibility to Government was going to cause some administrative bureaucracy that would retard development in newly resettled farms.

Announcing the 2018 budget proposals on December 7, Finance and Economic Planning Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the policy directive was reversed and local authorities would now collect the levies.