Kwekwe budget anti-poor, say residents
KWEKWE residents have condemned the proposed $26,9 million budget for the year 2019 dismissing it as anti-poor.
Kwekwe City Council recently adopted an increased budget for the year 2019 up from last year’s $26,3 million. In an interview, secretary-general for Kwekwe Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association (KRRA) Mr Alex Homela said residents have since started engaging relevant authorities in a bid to have the budget rejected.
He said the proposed budget was a clear demonstration that the MDC-T-dominated council was headed by greedy councillors who are out to enrich themselves.
“Surely, under these difficult times, this is not what people voted for. We can’t vote for councillors who concur to burden the already struggling residents by hiking tariffs without making any efforts to engage us,” he said.
Mr Homela said Kwekwe City Council never consulted residents but was trying to impose the budget.
“As residents, we never witnessed any budget consultation meeting with the councillors if ever there was one. We only saw the budget in the newspaper, which is surprising. We can’t have a budget imposed on us. We have since written a letter to the relevant ministry complaining about the manner in which budget issues were being handled in Kwekwe. We hope the ministry will reject this budget because it not a budget from the residents,” he said.
Kwekwe Mayor Councillor Angeline Kasipo could not be reached for comment. Her deputy, Cllr Shadreck Tobias, conceded that the budget was a burden to the people adding that they had a heated debate during a full council meeting on the proposed budget.
“We said some of the tariffs that were hiked should be reviewed downwards. Residents are facing some serious economic challenges, so we should be lenient in our operations,” he said.
Under the new budget, Kwekwe City council is proposing to hike its water and sewer charges by over 100 percent.
According to the proposed new tariffs, both residents and industry will have to fork out more in order to finance the cashstrapped local authority.
The residents are expected to pay between $15 and $19 as fixed charges.
Residents in high-density suburbs such as Mbizo and Amaveni have been parting with at least $9 as fixed charge per month before incurring other cumulative water and sewer charges.
According to the new tariff schedule, Kwekwe City Council is also proposing to increase refuse collection charges from the current $2 to $3 for those in the highdensity suburbs while those in low-density suburbs are expected to part with at least $5, up from the initial $2.
The local authority is also proposing over 400 percent increase for the same charges to industries from the current $10 for weekly collections to $45 and $60 for daily collections.