City of Harare to charge interest on rates arrears

The City of Harare says it will soon begin charging interest on outstanding bills.

In a public notice, the local authority said the move has been necessitated by the

Meanwhile, City of Harare is owed thousands of dollars by corporates and residents.

Harare City Council is now owed in excess ZWL$90 billion by Government, residents and business a situation that is affecting service delivery.

Mayor Cllr Jacob Mafume recently urged stakeholders to settle their debts so that service delivery does not suffer.

“Council needs to buy equipment in order to provide an effective and efficient service delivery system. We are satellite towns that get services from Harare to also pay their debts in order for the city to be able to continue providing services to various stakeholders,” he said.

Harare provides water Chitungwiza, Ruwa, Epworth and Norton. “Chitungwiza, Ruwa, Norton and Epworth whom we give water owe us a lot of money,” he said.

He said there is need to buy equipment to be able to move refuse to Pomona dump site especially in the wake of the ever expanding city and population. Mafume added that council has resolved to ask new developers to buy equipment that deals with refuse and supply of water when issuing new permits.

Meanwhile, Cllr Mafume said the city has organised a blitz where they are going to have a massive waste management programme.

“Hararians have a culture of throwing away everything from soil that they sweep to metal, plastic and paper.”

“Thus, we should separate our waste at source hence we need to collect and recycle it but the city is not doing so. He said even bio-degradable waste is recycled hence the city is going to change its waste management architecture together with the government.

“We are going to collect garbage where it is supposed to be collected, get rid of the illegal dump sites and get into inter-media transfer stations so that waste does not have to travel 50 km away from source to Pomona,” he said.

Zwnews