MASVINGO residents have threatened to demonstrate against council’s decision to unleash debt collectors to clamp down on households and informal traders owing close to $6 million in unpaid rates, while government departments who owe close to $32 million are spared.
By Tatenda Chitagu
Council announced last week that it had engaged two law firms — Makausi Saratoga Law Chambers and Tsara and Associates — to track down the debtors, giving them ultimatums and threatening to attach properties over unpaid rates.
Town clerk Adolf Gusha defended the decision to hire debt collectors, saying non-payment of bills by residents had stalled service delivery.
But the Masvingo United Residents and Ratepayers Alliance (MURRA) in a statement said they will mobilise residents to protest the move.
“As MURRA, we are extremely angered by the move by the council. We condemn the move to take residents to debt collectors as those targeted are from home industries from Mucheke, Rujeko, Runyararo West, Hillside and Sisk who are not making imaginable profits from their businesses due to the prevailing harsh economic conditions in the country,” said Murra spokesperson Godfrey Mtimba.
“What is more worrying is that the council only targeted informal traders and private businesses and ignored government departments like the army and the police who with other parastatals owe close to $32 million. Why don’t council just do the same to them? We demand that the municipality rescind their decision as residents are set to lose their property,” he said.
Mtimba said they are giving council a seven day ultimatum to reverse the decision, failure of which they will also take legal action.
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“If the council does not reverse the move, we are going to mobilise residents en masse and we will take to the streets and storm Town House. We are also considering another route of approaching the Constitutional Court through our all-weather partners, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR). We have approached them and something is in the pipeline if our request is ignored,” Mtimba said.
