THE breakdown of the Bulawayo City Council (BCC)’s bill printing machines has stalled the local authority's service delivery and revenue collection efforts.
BCC recently gave notice to residents and stakeholders of its failure to send printed statements to the ratepayers due to a breakdown of its printing machines.
In the latest council minutes, the council sought authority to avail funds for heavy-duty printers. The minutes state that BCC finance director Kempton Ndimande noted that council had a centralised printing system for large documents such as bills, payslips, payment advice for medical aid and deviation reports, among others.
“On average, a total of 230 000 pages of these reports were printed per month. Normally there were two printers that were working at any given time. Three printers were purchased some three years ago from a Harare-based IBM licensed dealer Kenac Systems.
“All three printers were down and there was no printing of large documents taking place. This was adversely affecting the council in the following manner: 55 172 bills for the June 2022 cycle were not printed for part of Pumula, Tshabalala, Sizinda, Nkulumane, Rangemore, Nketa, Emganwini and Cowdray Park,” the minutes read.
Council said it failed to print the whole cycle for July 2022 which totals 178 228 bills in all the billing districts.
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“Employees might not get copies of their payslips. Payments to medical doctors and other suppliers would be affected. The pace of billing would be affected because deviation lists would not be produced timeously,” the minutes read.
“Council was in the process of procuring repairs of the old printers and new printers. To alleviate the impact of not sending physical bills to customers a number of measures will be implemented.”
The council said it would encourage residents to register for e-billing.
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