By Tavita Natasha Mpala
Masvingo City Council says it is owed ZW$ 3 Billion by ratepayers which is crippling service delivery in the city.
Speaking to the publication, Masvingo City Town Clerk Engineer Edward Mukaratirwa encouraged creditors to visit the City of Masvingo offices for payment plan arrangement that will aid in improving service delivery.
“We want to provide the services to the residents, these include access to clean and safe water, refuse collection and management, road maintenance and rehabilitation and other services. For us to be able to provide these services we are encouraging the public to pay what they owe as the City Council is owed ZW$3 Billion in unpaid rates by residents.
For those facing challenges they can visit our offices for payment plans so that they do not drown in debt.”
He added to state the challenges on refuse collection and management as reports on constant unregulated fires at the old dumpsite have been recorded.
“A challenge we have noted with the old dumpsite is that almost every winter season we experience uncontrollable and unregulated fires. If you visit the dumpsite you realize that there are some people who collect recyclable materials so as temperatures drop in the winter season they ignite fires in order to warm themselves.
This has led to scenarios where the fire ends up being uncontrollable and these people fail to extinguish the fire. Because of the nature of the material that is dumped there whenever there is fire a gas called methane is created and it is not so easy to extinguish.”
Mr Mukaratirwa stated that they will move to the new dumpsite in two months.
We are expecting to start using the new landfill in the next two months, the only hold back at the moment is that we anticipating new equipment that we are purchasing so can soon as it is it delivered we will hit the ground running.
We are taking due diligence as we don’t want to create a situation where we move from an improperly managed sight to a similar one- the equipment will see to the proper disposal and covering of waste to avoid flies, fires and related diseases.”
In a separate interview, Masvingo City Council’s newly public relations officer Ashleigh Jinjika stated that the City Council has embarked on an awareness campaign to educate members of the community on the impact of vandalism of council infrastructure that have curtailed the local authority’s ability to meet its mandate on service delivery.
“The purpose of this campaign that we are holding is to sensitize our stakeholders on the impact of vandalism of council infrastructure and the effects of poor practices that are leading to blockages. We are facing blockage of sewer pipes because of habits done by residents that include using sand to scrap pots and discarding the sandy water in the sinks to the main pipes.
This means that the pipes now have a layer of the soil and that of unprocessed vim that turns into stone reducing diameter of the pipe. When town planning is conducted, it will be in such a way that the pipes are connected and aligned with accorded number of households so once the pipe diameter is reduced it creates a disturbance and lack of correlation between the two leading to blockages.
We do receive complaints from the residents when these pipes bursts but we need the community to understand the impact of poor practices that compromise our sewer pipes. If we work together in taking care of our infrastructure these problems will cease to exist.” Said Jinjika
Residents who spoke on condition of anonymity stated that there have been improvements in water supply and road rehabilitation in Masvingo.
“These days there has been improvement in terms of access to water and Its frequency as we now have running water on daily periods for longer periods of time, also our main highway roads have been completed and some are still under construction.
However, in places like KMP the roads are so poor and the city council is quite about fixing them. We pay our bills on time yet we are suffering on behalf of those that don’t, this need to change.”