By Beverly Bizeki
Government’s failure to settle its ballooning debt to Masvingo City Council is crippling its basic service delivery, with claims that the local authority is now owed millions by various government departments.
The staggering debt was revealed during a recent full council meeting and has been blamed for delayed infrastructure repairs, chronic pipe bursts, and the city’s growing struggle to fund critical services.
Speaking during the meeting, Ward 6 Councilor Wilstaf Sitemere raised the issue, citing government’s failure to settle its debts while the city council remains under pressure to meet financial obligations to other government entities like Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA).
“I am worried about our ballooning debts, for instance we owe Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) ZWL$59.6 million and yet there is a quite a huge public debt owed to council through government institutions.
We are making efforts to pay ZIMRA which is government but government owes us $108 million. There is need to have debt settlement agreements which are realistic otherwise would not be complaining about issues such as the 52 water bursts reported in the previous months,” said Sitemere.
Sitemere said the local authority had capable engineers who could not address challenges that the city was facing due to a lack of funds.
“The 52 water bursts recorded are as a result of procurement, we have very competent engineers but there are no materials to address those issues,” said Sitemere.
Ward 9 Councilor and Finance Committee Chairperson Benard Muchokwa said council was exploring debt arrangements with creditors like ZESA but warned that the energy costs were unsustainable for the local authority.
“We are trying to come up with a set off arrangement with ZESA because we also have services that we are offering them. The honest truth is ZESA is unsustainable for this institution, it is expensive for us, and we owe them more than they do.
“This is why as a committee we call for the implementation of the water augmentation phase two which will go a long way into cutting electricity costs. We are pumping water over long distances more than other local authorities do,” said Muchokwa.
Masvingo City Mayor Alec Tabe said there was a need for a dialogue with the Ministry of Local Government since the issue was affecting service delivery amongst all local authorities as treasury delays disbursement of funds.
“The issue that government institutions are not owning up their payments is not only affecting Masvingo, it now requires a policy engagement at national level. As city council we are taxed at the same time government owes us a lot of money, the few collections that we would have made will be garnished which paralyses service delivery,” said Tabe.
Tabe said there was a need for government to address the matter so that councils could also meet their obligations in service delivery.
“We are compelled by the ministry to meet service delivery standards but the treasury is not owning up payments to the institutions so that they will be able to pay us so that we also pay our debts.
“There is one local authority that had their accounts garnished which means when there is no money there is no service delivery hence the need for a national dialogue with our minister to see how we can bridge the existing gap,” said Tabe.
