Suburban
Harare residents are willing to pay rates but only when the city council is providing basic services which include water, refuse collection, street lighting, roads and infrastructure maintenance, a customer satisfaction survey has shown.
Suburban Reporter
According to a report of the survey, 98 percent of the respondents who took part in the research indicated their willingness to pay rates while two percent said they were not bothered to pay the municipality.
The findings of the City of Harare Customer Satisfaction Survey Report produced in December 2020 come in the wake of the municipality’s recent claims that it is owed more than $5,5 billion by residents, businesses, industry, churches, Government departments, stallholders at its markets as well as tenants renting the council’s residential and commercial properties.
The survey also showed that 78,3 percent of the respondents preferred receiving their bills electronically and paying them using electronic means.
Commenting on the findings of the survey, residents’ associations urged the City of Harare to shift to electronic billing and clean the current mess in its shambolic billing system.
Harare has since been issuing some ratepayers with e-bills but residents still complain the city is not capturing all their payments.
“The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) note with concern the continued chaotic, opaque billing system and charges for services not rendered which has created resentment among residents on payment of rates.
“We call upon the local authority to put in place an efficient and effective electronic payment system to enable citizens to pay their bills as the current system is discouraging (residents from) pay(ing),” the residents body said.
The survey was commissioned by the City of Harare and conducted by the Local Governance Trust and the Combined Harare Residents Association as part of broad efforts to inculcate a culture of social accountability into the city operations.
The City of Harare Customer (Household) Satisfaction Survey 2020 measured customer perception in key municipal functions and services, reads the executive summary of the report.
“It was premised on the understanding that municipal disaggregated data is key to ensuring that planning processes at the local authority level are founded on realistic targets and that effective implementation can be monitored, ensuring accountability and citizen follow-up,” further reads the report.
The survey reached 787 respondents of which 56,7 percent were female and 43,3 percent were male from 22 suburbs visited in Harare.
At least 44,1 percent of the respondents said they had lived in their respective suburbs for more than 20 years while 19,1 percent had lived in their residential areas for between 10 and 20 years.
“Survey data indicated that 38,5 percent of the respondents were informally employed, 19,2 percent were formally employed while the rest of the respondents were either students, unemployed or retired.”
The survey established that 35,6 percent of the respondents earned less than an equivalent of US$50 per month, 25,8 percent earned between US$50 and US$100 while the remainder were not comfortable disclosing their earnings.
“With very little disposable income, customers are unlikely to prioritise the payment of local authority services, especially in situations of inconsistent delivery of services,” reads the report.
Last month, the City of Harare released a list of its debtors showing Avondale, Mabelreign and Belvedere among some of the low and medium density suburbs owing council huge amounts in unpaid rates and service charges.
Avondale ratepayers owe $51 740 209, those from Mabelreign are in debt to the tune of $54 057 725, Tynwald residents owe council $157 271 136 while Belvedere ratepayers owe a total of $60 622 338.
City of Harare claims residential properties alone owe $2,4 billion which has incapacitated the municipality to deliver services.
“Service delivery in Harare has been compromised by non-payment of municipal bills now amounting to over $5,5 billion.
“Council requires the money to fund service delivery such as water provision, road repairs, street lighting, garbage collection, grass cutting, medicine at its clinics and to fund salaries.
“City employees are part of the service delivery matrix. Without a salary the employees are unable to report for work and to feed their families. Failure by stakeholders to pay for service is stalling progress in the city as residents and business fund service delivery. Council urges residents to pay up to improve service delivery,” the City of Harare said last month.
