Suburban
THERE are growing calls in some northern suburbs of Harare for residents to boycott paying council rates and service charges until the municipality begins to provide services to ratepayers.
Although some residents have been querying why they have to pay rates and service charges, the calls to boycott paying have recently grown louder as ratepayers are frustrated that the City of Harare is not making any effort to fix its challenges.
The calls also come in the wake of a revelation by a top city council official that the municipality was now resorting to punishing paying ratepayers by continually increasing rates and services charges to cover up for the deficit from defaulting ratepayers.
We have always argued that the City of Harare needs to earn the trust of ratepayers by fixing the challenges derailing service delivery so that more residents begin to pay their rates. Presently a small percentage of residents are paying their dues monthly even though they are not getting all the services they need particularly water and refuse collection.
Residents have been pumping out more money, in addition to paying their rates, to hire private refuse collectors and buy water from bulk water suppliers. Feeling the financial burden of the ever increasing rates while at the same time paying private service providers, the residents are now taking steps to protect themselves from being continually fleeced of their hard earned money. The residents are fed up, and they were bound to, given that prices of everything else (food, services, fuel and electricity) are going up.
In Highlands some residents have started taking their uncollected garbage to the district office in the suburb in protest over the municipality’s failure to revive refuse collection. In Mt Pleasant other residents have also indicated they would start taking their rubbish to Mt Pleasant district office next week if the council does not pick their garbage.
Residents have also been urging each other to demand that the city council scraps water and refuse collection charges because the municipality is failing to provide these. The residents argue that they should only pay property tax on the rates bill and not pay for services that are not being provided.
To further compound the situation, the City of Harare has been relentless in hiking its services. This week the municipality announced steep building plans and inspection fees quoted in United States dollars although residents and property developers have the option to pay in local currency at the prevailing official exchange rate of the day of payment.
It is a clear sign the council is now desperately trying to increase its revenue generation but the local authority might just be doing itself a disservice as some of the figures threaten to derail investment in the city.
While we agree the city needs to preserve the value of the revenue it is generating, some of the charges or fees are quite ridiculous to be honest. The fees show the financially struggling local authority has reached a dead end and might be running out of ideas on how to generate revenue.
