Harare City Council has sent letters of final demand to residents defaulting in paying rates and threatened legal action should they fail to “own up”.
The final demand letters were sent to residents and companies in the capital to settle their bills with immediate effect or risk legal action and/or their property auctioned.
“Failure to respond to the final letter of demand, legal action will be taken,” read part of the letters and statements to residents.
But defiant residents’ groups yesterday said they were ready to take the local authority head-on, insisting Harare should write-off the debts that accrued before dollarisation in February 2009 so that they have a clean start of the billing system.
Harare is owed hundreds millions of dollars by residents, industry and government.
Government has, however, promised to pay the $41 million it is owing following a recent meeting between Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and mayors early this year.
The majority of the residents’ bills range between $600 and $1 000 or more with the bulk of the debt said to have accrued before dollarisation.
In a statement, the Harare Residents’ Trust (HRT) said the residents’ debts should be written off.
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“We continue to record a massive outcry and disgruntlement from residents across Harare over delays in cancelling of debts by the City of Harare from the period February 2009 to December 2010,” HRT said.
“Residents have also demanded that the municipality scrap off debts accrued during the period of 2005 to 2006, during the Zimbabwe dollar era. These positions have emerged during Focus Group Discussions, public meetings and reports gathered by the HRT, as part of its mandate to evaluate and audit the performance of service providers.”
