REGIS CHINGAWO IN MASVINGO
The Masvingo City Council has begun pre-budget consultations with residents as it seeks ratepayers’ inputs for the 2022 budget, Business Times can report.
There has been growing fears from rate payers that the local authority would impose the budget.
But, the town clerk, Edward Mukaratirwa said it was imperative that residents and other stakeholders give their input in budget consultations.
“We are encouraging residents to give their input on budget consultations for next year’s budget,” Mukaratirwa said.
In a budget consultation report, seen by Business Times, the local authority said its 2022 budget priorities were drawn from the council’s strategic plan 2021-2025 that has been linked to the National Development Strategy 1.
The strategic plan identifies key priorities for the council, which include improved water, sanitation and hygiene, improved corporate governance, increased investment, improved access to social services, improved road trafficability, improved public safety and security and improved response time to emergencies.
The local authority is intending to allocate ZWL$350m to water augmentation phase two project and ZWL$505m to service stands.
Masvingo City Council will also allocate ZWL$85.8m to the proposed new dump site at Cambria Farm while Mucheke Trunk Sewer project will get ZWL$100m.
The proposed 2022 budget is poised to chew over ZWL$1.7m in capital expenditure.
The local authority is also proposing a water services tariff of ZWL$226.19 per m to enable cost recovery.
There is also a proposal to introduce a public lighting levy.
“Improved public safety and security is one of the key priorities in the council’s strategic plan as well as NDS1.
“However, because of limited resources, the council is unable to rehabilitate public lighting infrastructure in the city. It is in this vein that we propose to introduce a public lighting levy of ZW$180.00 per property per month for the period January to June 2022.
“The funds will be ring-fenced and applied to the intended purpose. A review of the levy will then be made during the half-year budget review process,” reads part of the report.
The local authority also gave an update on the performance of the 2021 budget.
Total revenue realised for the period January to September 2021 is ZW$1.1bn against budgeted revenue of ZW$ 1.2bn.
Actual revenue collected amounted to ZW$ 836m.
Expenditure performance was 72%, with actual expenditure amounting to ZW$877m against budgeted expenditure of ZW$1.2bn.
“Expenditure performance was significantly affected by revenue collection which was also affected by the pandemic as well as the general economic environment,” part of the report reads.
The Masvingo City Council did not propose a supplementary budget during the year despite the general increase in the prices with year-on-year inflation starting at over 300% at the beginning of the year and slowing down to 51.5% by September 2021.
Council had proposed quarterly adjustments to tariffs for 2021 which was not approved by the Minister of Local Government.
“Faced with this scenario, Council had to shelve some of the capital projects that were planned for the year as well as realigning expenditure towards more critical services,” the local authority said.
