Councils warned against rates increase
COUNCILS have been warned against unilaterally increasing their rates before their budgets are approved by the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works.
This comes amid revelations that some local authorities — both urban and rural — had gone on to implement tariff changes as projected by their 2020 budgets before they have been approved by the Government.
Speaking on the sidelines of a familiarisation tour of projects by rural district councils in Matabeleland North last Thursday, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Public Works, Cde Marian Chombo revealed they got reports that some councils were implementing the new tariffs without ministerial approval. Deputy Minister Chombo said action would be taken against such councils.
“Councils are warned from effecting levies that have not yet been approved by the ministry, it is illegal. We know that some councils went to implement these illegal levies but we immediately reprimanded them and they reverted to the old tariffs while they await the approval of their respective budgets.
“I should hasten to say that we are working hard to ensure that we go through all the proposed budgets and approve them on time. Actually, as we speak a few days ago I was in the office with the Minister (July Moyo) where we were going through some of them. I am sure that in the coming days or couple of weeks we would have approved all the budgets for them to be implemented by the councils, where we have recommendations, this will also be done by then,” said the deputy minister.
She proposed budgets were expertly scrutinised by the ministry before getting ministerial approval.
According to the ministerial guidelines in the budget making process by local authorities, the budget must adhere to the 70 percent service delivery and 30 percent salaries for it to be approved. The deputy minister further encouraged councils to utilise devolution funds allocated to them saying delays would make the funds lose value.
She said the devolution funds were integral to community development and it was unfair for local authorities to sit on them instead of using them to develop their respective communities.
“What we are saying is that these funds should be utilised as I am sure the respective local authorities already have plans for them, it becomes unfair when the councils just sit on the funds because by the time they want to use them, they would have lost value.
“We also have a problem of some of these local authorities returning funds allocated to them but this also coincided with some areas being hit by storms so we encouraged these councils to use the funds to repair infrastructure that was damaged by the storms, which is also a key use of the funds, that is to develop areas,” said Deputy Minister Chombo.
She revealed that they would soon be presenting findings on investigations made by the ministry on a number of local authorities facing corruption allegations including Bulawayo City Council.
“So far, I can confirm that some of the reports have been handed over to the ministry and tomorrow (Friday) when I get back to office, we will be reviewing them with my minister, we will then take it from there,” she said.
The Government in July last year deployed a five-member team to investigate circumstances leading to the attempted suspension of Bulawayo town clerk, Mr Christopher Dube, by then deputy mayor, Mr Tinashe Kambarami and a clique of councillors.
The five, comprised senior officials including directors in the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works interviewed the town clerk, Mr Kambarami, the mayor, Councillor Solomon Mguni and other council officials as part of their investigations.
The former deputy mayor was caught in the eye of storm after he, together with ward four Councillor, Silas Chigora attempted to violently eject Mr Dube from office, taking advantage of Clr Mguni’s absence with Mr Kambarami assuming the acting mayor role. It, however, later emerged that Clr Mguni was actually not on leave. The suspension was eventually overturned by Clr Mguni.