VINCENT MHENE IN GWERU
Power utility ZESA has threatened to switch off Gweru City Council to recover ZWL$260m debt, it has been learnt.
The local authority’s director of finance, Livingstone Churu, said the city council received a notice this week on Monday from the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission Distribution Company (ZETDC), a unit of ZESA stating the utility`s intention to cut the power supply.
“Like today (Monday), I did not have a good day in the office after I received a notice of electricity disconnection and I was really troubled. What it means is that if our electricity is disconnected, we can no longer pump water, we cannot collect revenue, so we were pleading with ZESA not to switch us off and I think they understood us because they were bound to disconnect us today (Monday) at 10 a.m”, Churu said during Business Times’ sister radio station, 98.4FM, current affairs show.
Defending the local authority’s move to rebase its budget to the United States dollar, Churu said the city council was faced with a financial situation where it was about to “grind to a halt” providing services to residents, as it was struggling to raise enough revenue.
“In a way, by rebasing our budget we are actually trying to cushion the ratepayers because we know it`s very difficult but we do not have a choice because we were reaching a point we were about to grind to a halt,” he said.
He added: “When we are billing, our average monthly bill is at ZW$279.68m.
But, like today when I was doing rough calculations of how much we need for monthly expenditure, the amount came up to ZW$436.20m against a billing of ZW$279m.
It means as a city, financial experts would tell you that we are bankrupt, we cannot operate, hence we decided to rebase (the budget).”
Churu added: “The issue of rebasing is that we have retained our budget`s value, we have not changed the budget approved by the Minister (of Local Government) but have just reverted to its US dollar term value as at 15 November 2021. But, when we then bill residents on a monthly basis, on the day that we bill, we will use the prevailing interbank rate, except that our rate will run for the whole month until the next billing exercise.
This is different from if we were billing residents in the US dollar, where it would mean when they come to pay, we then apply the rate (exchange), but in this case our rate applies for the whole month.”
Gweru City Council this month announced that it would be rebasing its budget with effect from July 1, 2022.
According to Churu, the rebasing of the budget would not affect the debt ratepayers had accumulated before July 1, 2022 when the city council said the process would be coming into effect.
But, Gweru United Progressive Ratepayers Development Association Trust executive director, David Chikore, said the council should have consulted the residents before effecting it.
He said some residents were afraid that they could lose their property if they defaulted on their bills and the local authority effected execution against property.
Gweru City Council earlier this year unleashed debt collectors on defaulting ratepayers and some lost their property after it was attached.
“There are people who are already struggling to meet their obligations because they have no incomes and are very poor so it would have been prudent that the council consulted us before implementing it so that we reach a common ground.
“Within our communities, we have child-headed incomes, pensioners who are struggling, the unemployed, I mean people who are so disadvantaged to the point that if you ask them to pay more they inevitably will sink into more debt,” Chikore said.
He proposed that the city council have a differentiated system of rebasing that recognised the most socio-economically vulnerable community members to cushion them from the changes.
However, Churu said the city council had considered the different economic capacities of ratepayers, where the charges would vary according to the residential property values.
