Council clears 10-year salary arrears

MUTARE City Council has finally cleared its employees’ salary arrears that had gone for close to a decade without being paid.

The salary arrears for Mutare City Council staff had been making cannon fodder for local media since 2013.

Speaking during the European Union delegation on Local Authorities Digital Systems (LADS) capacity building intervention progress assessment tour on Monday, Mutare Mayor, Councillor Simon Chabuka confirmed the development.

“Admittedly, we still have a long way to go as a local authority because of the legacy challenges that we inherited. The good thing, however, is that we are in the right direction as far as management of the city’s affairs is concerned.

“There was no staff motivation. Issues relating to lack of accountability and transparency were not a secret at the Civic Centre. Nonetheless, from around 2017 to date, we have managed to overcome some of these challenges. We have cleared salaries arrears hat had accumulated from 2013 to 2021.

“This is a clear indication that we have managed to clear some of our major legacy debts and challenges,” said Councillor Chabuka. He said resolving the legacy challenges was made possible with the help of development partners.

“There is no doubt that we have managed to achieve this through the assistance that we got and we continue getting from development partners.For European Union, we still need you to walk with us through this journey as we seek to instil transparency and accountability in our systems.

We are now torch bearers in terms of local governance, all because of the help we got from these development partners. Our dream is to make this city a world class city,” said Councillor Chabuka.

In a separate presentation, Mrs Emma Mandiziba, the local authority’s Director for Housing and Community Services, noted the improved revenue collection systems within the local authority as one of the major reasons Council has been able to tackle some of the legacy challenges.

“We want to improve our three digital payment systems because we still have members of the public who physically want to pay their bills and get a hard copy receipt. However, with time, we hope our clients will embrace all forms of payments. Our statutory audits and deductions are now up to date.

“We have had a significant revenue collection ratio which was at 33 percent in 2019 and 60 percent in 2021. This has enabled us to tackle most of our legacy challenges,” she said.

Acting Town Clerk, Mr Blessing Chafesuka weighed in: “We have also made sure that we come up with revenue ring fencing systems whereby not all revenue is general revenue.

“Revenue from water, fire tending, lighting and other sources have specific dedicated accounts for easier management and accountability in our revenue collection systems.

“The digital management for all this has been made easier through the Memorandum of Understanding that we have with Harare Institute of Technology which gave birth to the LADS systems in our management of transactions,” he said.