HARARE City Council yesterday said invasions of markets and car sales in and around Harare by Chipangano — a shadowy militant outfit allegedly linked to Zanu PF — and failure by the government to settle its debts, were the biggest threats to implementing the 2013 budget, approved by council last week.
Report by Moses Matenga Staff Reporter
This comes at a time residents are threatening to object the proposed budget, in what observers say will further compound council woes.
The city’s finance and development committee chairperson Friday Muleya yesterday said the biggest problem was the invasions by Chipangano, failure by the government, residents and the corporate world to settle bills amounting to over $250 million.
“That’s a big problem for us. We have written letters to people using council land, but without paying anything to the local authority. We are targeting all flea markets, other markets and car sales these people are using,” Muleya said.
“We have written to them to vacate these places and if they don’t, we will send our people to act on them,” he said.
Asked how they expected to succeed when they failed last year, Muleya said: “We will be sending our people to reinforce (council police) and if we have a problem we will seek assistance from Zimbabwe Republic Police. For the government debt, we have tasked the mayor to talk to government representatives so that we engage in payment methods.”
Muleya said it was surprising that after making pre-budget consultations with residents, other organisations were now shooting it down.
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“All we are saying is, whoever is complaining is free to come and we will discuss because they might have important inputs. What they are doing now can only delay the process because people were consulted. Now I wonder why they say they were not consulted,” said Muleya. Debtors owe council more than $250 million.
