Residents of Chegutu plan to take to the streets today to demonstrate against poor service delivery and alleged mismanagement in the farming and mining town.
BY SILENCE CHARUMBIRA
Chairperson of the Chegutu Residents and Ratepayers’ Association Moffat Tembo accused the municipality of attaching their properties over failure to pay debts.
“The mayor has hired debt collectors from Harare to collect payments and attach our property without notice yet the council employs debt collectors,” Tembo said.
“Some have been living in rent-to-buy houses in a scheme which was supposed to last 25 years. But now they are being asked to pay $3 220 because their spouses or parents have died yet they have stayed in those houses since 1961.”
He said the residents would also be demonstrating against the haphazard allocation of stands.
Tembo said some residents had not accessed tap water for close to 10 years yet they were being billed $10 every month for services not rendered.
“The town has been parcelling out stands on space meant to be school grounds, chapel and a hospital and we cannot let that continue,” he said.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Chegutu town clerk Malex Mandigo yesterday said he was not aware of the planned demonstration.
“I am hearing it from you. What I know is that comparatively, we are doing very well as a council with our water rated number three in the country and our roads are some of the best,” Mandigo said.
“We engaged external debt collectors through a tender process. The purported internal debt collectors they are referring to are actually meter readers and we do assign them once in a while to serve residents with letters, not that they are debt collectors.”
