Contributing during a full council meeting recently, Ward 10 councillor Tendayi Musonza, said they could not take the legal route because service provision was poor and the billing was “pathetic”.
The council has for a long time failed to provide residents with clean running water exposing them to diseases, said Musonza. “We cannot be seen taking the same people who voted us into office to court. After all, the billing system is in a shambles,” said Musonza. “Council should think of other means to encourage residents to pay because the reason they are not paying is that they don’t have the water.”
Acting Chinhoyi Town Clerk Willie Tembo tried to convince councillors that council could only provide clean water if the residents and other debtors paid up. The councillors, however, remained adamant.
Tembo said the council was failing to pay workers on time because debtors were not paying including the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) which, he said, owned the local authority more than US$300 000.
Tembo revealed that Unicef, which had been providing water treatment chemicals for free, stopped last month. The council is now required to fork out US$20 000 every month to buy the water chemicals.
