Harare new billing system undermines revenue collection

THE Harare Residents’ Trust (HRT) is very disappointed with Harare City Council’s new billing system. The system has proved that it lacks the capacity needed to serve the city.

The city council migrated from the BIQ billing system to Sage Evolution. Upon switching to Sage Evolution, the Harare City Council said that the system was more efficient and easier to use than BIQ. However, the new system has been faulty, shambolic and failed to capture all the properties supposed to be billed in Harare.

Councillors and council officials have indicated that the mayor and town clerk made an illadvised decision to discontinue council's relationship with the previous billing system, BIQ, which had the capacity to capture all rates items, do online procurement, asset control, salary processing, among several other functions.

The new system is too small for a city as big as Harare and works best with small numbers.

The Sage Evolution billing system is always down. This has affected residents in the payment of rates and has a direct impact on service delivery.

Revenues have progressively declined. The new billing system’s glitches have also resulted in the city struggling to provide bills to ratepayers.

Sometimes ratepayers are told to pay amounts that they find “reasonable”.

The HRT is of the opinion that the Harare City Council needs to act urgently to ensure that the issue of declining revenues is addressed.

They must act objectively, swallow their pride and re-engage BIQ so that they meet halfway and get the situation resolved. Inadequate revenues continue to undermine service provision in Harare. Harare Residents’ Trust