Govt distances self from Byo forex rates
THE Government has said it is not aware of recent moves by the Bulawayo City Council to index water and rates bills to residents in foreign currency, a move that has also been met with public outcry.
Last week the local authority announced that bills will this month be indexed in foreign currency as they argued that the current charges have been rendered inadequate by the prevailing economic conditions. The local authority said residents had the option of paying in foreign currency or local currency using the prevailing auction rate at the time of billing.
However, Government has since distanced itself from the move, while it has also emerged that council management allegedly made the initial directive without informing councillors and had to rush to call for a special council meeting after councillors had raised a red flag. In an interview with Sunday News yesterday, Local
Government and Public
Works Minister, Cde July Moyo said he was not aware of the latest move by BCC.
“I am not aware of that, I will have to check to find out what is happening, so we can then advise accordingly,” said Minister Moyo.
Contacted for comment,
Bulawayo Mayor, Councillor Solomon Mguni said as far as they were concerned the Government had been fully briefed as they had approved the local authority’s budget that had been indexed in foreign currency. He said residents had to realise that if BCC continued billing in local currency, which has been hit by inflation, it was going to adversely affect service delivery as a huge chunk of the revenue realised would go towards salaries.
“Actually this is something which we should have been doing since February. It is nothing new really because the Ministry also knows that our 2022 budget was indexed in foreign currency. This is the existing economic environment.
“What we are saying is that residents will still be able to pay in local currency but that will be according to the auction rate at the time of billing. All we want is to ensure that we are able to deliver services to our residents instead of directing the majority of our revenue towards paying salaries,” said Clr Mguni.
However, councillors have accused managers of bypassing them in coming up with the directive, noting that council management only called for a special council meeting after the Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube, had already issued out a public notice on the issue.
THE family of a man who was found hanging from a tree in Woodlands, Bulawayo on Wednesday has disputed the results of the post-mortem revealing that he had committed suicide and is demanding a fresh autopsy.
According to the post-mortem report that was issued on Thursday, Jack Nyathi (45) who had been missing for 18 days died of asphyxia and hanging even as the family insists that he may have been killed.
The report put the date and time of death as between 28 May and 14 June.
When Sunday News spoke to the deceased’s brother, Mr Emmanuel Nyathi, he disputed the findings and said his family felt that his brother may have been murdered.
Mr Nyathi said his brother would be buried today, but the family was preparing to petition the State to allow them to exhume the body as soon as possible for another post-mortem.
“The post-mortem report stated that my brother died as a result of suicide and no foul play was suspected. However, when we went to the site where his body was found today (yesterday), we found traces of blood and an iron bar which we think may have been used to assault or torture my brother.
“We have no choice but to bury him tomorrow (today), but we are exploring the possibility of having his body exhumed as soon as possible and seek a second opinion from another pathologist as to the cause of death,” Mr Nyathi said.
According to Mr Nyathi, his brother went missing on the night of 28 May after he had called his boss, telling him that he was tied up and people were threatening to kill him.
The employer then called the police on
“We were shocked when residents started asking us on the implications of the public notice, management clearly bypassed councillors on this issue, even the Finance and Development committee was not aware of the matter.
“They only called for a special council meeting after the public notice had been issued but it was just merely to rubber stamp the decision by management, there is nothing much we could do. So in this case management made the policy and not councillors, yet it is supposed to be the other way round,” said a councillor who preferred anonymity.
Meanwhile, the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association has blasted the council over the issue.
In a letter addressed to the town clerk, the association noted that council should be seized with spreading opportunities that invest more towards increasing income levels to help residents make ends meet. the same night before accompanying the deceased’s brother to Bulawayo Central Police Station to report the matter.
“I received a call from my brother’s boss on the night of May 28 and he said Jack had called him at around 10 or 11pm that same night and told him that some people had tied him and threatened to kill him.
“We made a formal report with the police the following day. We tried to look for him for 18 days and even went through the same bush a few times. At one point we asked the police to use sniffer dogs to try and find him but this was not done until some men who were poaching sand in the area saw his body hanging from a tree.
“These people reported the matter at Hillside Police Station and also called me because one of them had heard that we were looking for Jack who was missing. I went to the police station and then accompanied them to the bushy area where we found my brother hanging,” Mr Nyathi explained.
Bulawayo provincial police spokesperson Inspector Abednico Ncube confirmed that no foul play was suspected and the official cause of death was suicide.
“We received reports that a body had been discovered hanging from a tree in a bushy area near the Woodlands Shopping Centre. According to the post-mortem report by the pathologist at United Bulawayo Hospitals, the deceased, Jack Nyathi died of asphyxia and hanging and we suspect no foul play. The body was found in a state of decomposition,” Insp Ncube said.
Insp Ncube also urged the public to seek help from family members, counsellors and churches before electing to take their own lives. - @RealSimbaJemwa
Govt distances self from Byo forex rates
“The reality on the ground is that a lot of residents are actually falling behind in paying council bills and rentals in local currency and there is no way that charging in USD will turn this reality around.
“A return to USD payment will actually worsen the plight of residents who live on outof-pocket transactions. While we understand the challenges BCC is faced with in providing service delivery, our key question remains ‘whose reality really counts?’
“Is it that of BCC or that of ordinary rate payers, the majority of whom are living in poor conditions and abject poverty?” reads part of the letter.
The residents further declined a proposed meeting with council officials, which council management had slated for tomorrow, unless the local authority produces evidence in the form of full council minutes to indicate that due procedure was followed and a full council resolution was passed to effect the re-alignment of tariff charges.