City Of Harare | Pay your bills, Acting Mayor Mutizwa

Residents have been implored to pay their municipal bills to capacitate council to provide services such as water, refuse collection, road repairs, street lighting among other services as provided in the Urban Councils’ Act. Speaking in an interview Acting Mayor Cllr Musarurwa Mutizwa said successful service delivery was premised on the participation of ratepayers and consumers of municipal services. “There should be no excuse to not paying one’s rates and service charges. Once one decides to be an urbanite, they should appreciate it comes with a cost. The cost is in meeting the municipal bills,” he said. His comments come at a time council is considering converting all outstanding debts into United States dollars at the prevailing bank rate. Recently a call was made to residents to settle their outstanding bills within three months after which period council would convert all outstanding amounts into United States dollars. There has been a significant improvement in revenue collection in recent weeks as residents want to beat the deadline. Cllr Mutizwa indicated that there are some on demand services that council was also considering to charge in United States dollars. Council procures most of its services and goods from suppliers who argue they get their money on the black market hence their pricing which reflects the black market rates. This has had a crippling effect on council revenue which is pegged on the interbank bank rate and usually payable in the local currency. Collecting payments in United States dollars will eliminate procuring goods and services at black market rates and will help preserve the value of the money.