Kariba $11m debt

KARIBA Municipality owes $11,5 million to its statutory creditors and is battling to recover $12 million from residents and ratepayers, which could have helped it clear its debts.

The latter owes the municipality about $12 million in unpaid rates and tariffs.

In an interview, Kariba Municipality’s finance director Mr Saratiere Chitenhe said council has engaged a debt collector who is targeting the commercial entities.

“We owe $11,5 million mostly to our statutory creditors such as ZETDC, NSSA and ZIMRA, but we are also owed about $12 million.

“However, since we engaged a debt collector, we have seen an improvement in collection from commercial debtors where the former has been concentrating on,” he said.

Mr Chitenhe said the municipality would engage residents to clear their debts soon.

He also added that the Kariba Municipality would not be writing off any debts, urging all ratepayers to continue paying their debts.

“Unlike other councils, we did not consider promotions or writing off debts as some of the people here are up to date with their payments.

“We saw it fit to protect the ratepayers who could be disadvantaged by that, so we are appealing to all those in arrears to pay so that council can provide full service delivery as it is our mandate to do so,” he said.

Mr Chitenhe said council liquidity ratio is almost one is to one as the amount owed nearly tallies with what council owes.

“We, however, normally do some set offs, where we just add to what we owe for us to enjoy services from these service providers,” he said.