A synopsis of the billing crisis in Harare South suburbs

Suburban Reporter

IN MARCH this year, City of Harare Region 2 manager Engineer Norman Karidza revealed how the municipality was failing to bill all the households in the new suburbs that have sprouted in Harare South over the years.

Eng Karidza told a Region 2 service delivery meeting that the region that encompasses Hopley, Southlands, Stoneridge, Southview Park (also known as Fidelity Park), Southlea Park and Ushewokunze has a total of about 39 500 households but council was billing only 16 000 households.

He said not all of the suburbs are receiving services and in the few thousand households getting services, a large chunk of them are not paying for the services while council is billing and receiving payments for non-delivered services from a number of the households in the region.

Under its decentralisation programme, the City of Harare has divided its wards into five regions led by a manager supported by district officers and other council departments. The decentralisation strategy envisages a situation where a part of the money collected from the wards is channeled back into the regions to fund service delivery in those particular areas.

Eng Karidza said Region 2 was unique in the sense that development is lagging in the suburbs under the region.

“This is where people were settled before infrastructure was set up. So in terms of compliance, there are only three areas that are partially compliant which are Southview Park, Southlea and Southlands,” said Eng Karidza.

He said only about 2 030 households in Hopley and 5 600 households in Fidelity Park (Southview  Park) had water and sewer infrastructure at the time of the meeting.

The meeting also heard how the low revenue collection in suburbs under Region 2 mirrors the rest of the regions and suburbs in the city leaving the city to struggle to provide services and infrastructure for ratepayers.

Eng Karidza said only three suburbs Hopley, Southview Park and Southlands were being billed with revenue collection on the low side while in the rest of the suburbs were not.

In Hopley, 1 500 households in Phase One were being billed and the council was in the process of sending the general plans of the area for valuations to create accounts so that the municipality could bill the other outstanding 1 900 households.

“So by the end of the month (March 2024), we will be able to bill those 1 900. Those still to have (water) meters connected must have meters connected by the end of the month as well as we move towards billing those residents,” said Eng Karidza.

He said the region collected RTS$251 million in February this year, up from the RTGS$119 million it managed in January. In terms of foreign currency, the region collected US$6 300 in February compared to US$5 400 in January.

“So we have a lot of work to do in terms of revenue collection which supports infrastructure,” said Eng Karidza.

The situation is similar in other new settlements such as Eastview, Caledonia and Sally Mugabe Heights.