Residents threaten rates boycott

By The NewsDay | Apr. 9, 2014 | 3 Min read

HARARE residents have threatened to boycott paying council rates in protest against erratic water supplies and poor service delivery.

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The threats followed the recent move by the local authority to disconnect supplies to thousands of homesteads with outstanding bills.

On the other hand, pressure group Affirmative Action Group (AAG) has called for the dissolution of the MDC-T-dominated council for allegedly failing to execute its mandate of providing service delivery.

Harare Residents’ Trust director Precious Shumba told NewsDay yesterday that residents “had run out of patience”.

“The message emerging is that residents are reaching a level of pronouncing that we will not pay for services until the billing system is addressed. We are really seriously concerned with the capacity of Harare Water and the Treasury department to bill for any service yet they are unable to provide that service,” Shumba said.

“They can’t bill people correctly and provide a service yet they set fixed water charges, they have leaking pipes all over and it takes time for council to attend to those leaks. They can’t explain and residents are losing confidence in their capacity and efficiency.”

He said council was creating an artificial water shortage to justify its plans to privatise water provision.

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Combined Harare Residents’ Association chairman Simbarashe Moyo described the disconnections as “catastrophic”.

“We don’t expect council just to come in and cut water supplies to residents without dialogue between the defaulter and city. The danger is a person will dig a well, drink contaminated water and fall sick then go to council hospitals and we will have a disaster. They have failed and we are even worried,” he said.

Chitungwiza residents have threatened a peaceful demonstration tomorrow in protest against non-availability of water in the dormitory town.

Harare provides water to Chitungwiza, Ruwa, Epworth and Norton and under normal circumstances should pump out at least 1 400 megalitres a day to cover for more than four million residents of Greater Harare. Currently the council is only able to supply about 500 megalitres a day.

Council spokesperson Leslie Gwindi said the water shortage was being compounded by high demand.

“The water issue is an old issue and we have always said that we have issues of demand versus supply. What we have said to residents as the solution is to build a new source of water and that is very critical because we are depending on the source we had while we were few. As a short-term measure, we need to improve efficiency at Morton Jaffray Waterworks, but that won’t improve 100%,” Gwindi said.

On residents’ threats to boycott payment, Gwindi said: “We are supplying where we can and we have to push together.”

Meanwhile, AAG chief executive officer Davison Gomo said council had failed and action should be taken to save residents. “The leadership and management at Harare City Council have over a considerable period failed very dismally to fulfil the mandate of their office,” he said. “The residents of Harare have suffered immeasurably under the weight of frightening inefficiency and corruption which, to our dismay, has gone unpunished.”

Gomo said residents of Harare had witnessed and watched helplessly as their city was being “destroyed by a leadership that is blatantly arrogant and knows nothing but to serve their own interests and that of their party at the expense of the residents and the economy of Harare”.

He said the government should appoint a registered public accountant to carry out a thorough audit into the integrity of the procedures and systems used by council and the veracity of the contracts awarded to date.

Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni was said to be out of office yesterday when NewsDay sought his comment, but last week he told Parliament that he was ready to fight and change things in Harare despite challenges.