DOMESTIC consumers owe the largest chunk of the nearly $83 billion debt to the Harare City Council, crippling service delivery.
“To date, we have collected $48,781 billion against a potential of $112 billion. The variance is very huge, and it shows that we are not able to efficiently collect what we are billing. Our creditors stand at $9,092 billion, largely driven by electricity costs and water treatment chemicals. Our debtors are at $82 701 billion,” mayor Jacob Mafume said.
“Domestic consumers are the biggest debtors, followed by industry, commercial and government. All debtors must realise that there is a cost attached to doing business in an urban setting, and as such must honour their obligations so that we can also provide basic services.
“Our enterprise resource planning (ERP) must work, and beginning January 2023 we expect the executive to have made strides in ensuring that our billing and receipting is up to scratch. We will employ aggressive debt recovery strategies so that we can channel more resources towards service delivery.”
Mafume told NewsDay that the city needed to improve revenue collection to be able to fund service delivery operations.
“When someone doesn’t pay for services we have provided, it means that the existing ratepayers have taken care of the bill. It means that we cannot purchase the raw materials and other consumables that are needed for those services.
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“So once we start paying out and recovering later, we lose value and lose trust of our suppliers of goods and services,” he said.