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By Lovemore Chazingwa
The city of Kadoma is coming out of its shell on the plight of ratepayers after it had effected tight US dollar demands on service charges owing to Finance Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube’s mid-winter pronouncement that the greenback is legal tender in the wider economy.
Since then, however, the chiefs at Town House seem to be failing to attract the hard-to-get greenback due to the prevailing liquidity crunch.
Climbing down on its previous hard stance for payments in full, with no respite, the City of Gold has come up with a double-edged bonanza dubbed a ‘Rates cooling summer promotion’, meant to benefit both ratepayers and itself.
The promotion intends to leverage on ratepayer US dollar payments and/or that they maintain servicing bill accounts in up-to-date status.
“Come into our rates halls and claim your promotional incentive of up to fifty percent if you pay in US dollars. An additional ten percent monthly discount is open to those who maintain their bills up to date and are debt free. The promotion starts August 1, 2022, making your bill payment easy, affordable and predictable,” reads the condensed public communique by the council.
The duration of this window is open, tempting one to draw a conclusion that the city targets to continually rack in as much greenback as possible from the stakeholders while the opposite party keeps servicing their accounts in the prescribed manner.
Council has previously extended bill payment holidays whose impact on city revenue flows has not been publicly communicated, making it difficult for stakeholders to assess the success or lack thereof of such undertakings.
Earlier, finance director Faustina Zhou was pinned to re-emphasize incentives available for aggregated groups in the city, among them pensioners and elders, to expressly benefit from such carrots by the council.
Like other councils, the City of Kadoma has a legacy debt arrears bill from ratepayers, both commercial and domestic, running into millions (local currency), that if serviced, have the potential to shore up service delivery.
The only city-status municipality in Mashonaland West province is dogged by perennial fresh drinking water woes, a bursting sewer system, outdated street lighting, poor roads network, and general a general service delivery slump.
Kadoma has in many instances applied a counterproductive start-stop approach to project implementation.
Ratepayers are increasing calls for the City Fathers to venture into partnerships and income-generating projects so that it does not solely rely on rates for revenue inflows.
This way, ratepayers argue, the council is able to sustain and deliver on its mandate at affordable charges.
“We are considering options for private-public partnerships (PPPs) with potential investors we cannot reveal at the moment,” Mayor Ald. Action Nyamukondiwa said in a recent interview on avenues for a revenue boost.
Ironically, the city sits on vast gold deposits which have earned it the nomenclature, City of Gold, but has virtually nothing to show for investment in its natural endowments.