CHEGUTU — The Municipality of Chegutu has embarked on a vigorous door-to-door debt collection exercise in a bid to recover over $5 million owed by residents.
“Chegutu, just like any other local authority, is owed huge sums of money by residents who are failing to pay debts,” said town clerk Alex Mandigo.
“We have therefore established a revenue-generation committee headed by our senior internal debt collector tasked with recovering money.
“Officials are going to individual households and liaising with debtors.
“In our view as council, taking punitive measures such as attaching defaulters’ property through the courts was inhumane hence we sought more friendly ways to recover the debts.”
The door-to-door exercise, which started in January, had yielded dividends inducing cash-inflows as residents agreeing to payment plans, a treasury official said.
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“In January alone, we managed to collect $296 000 and a total of $210 000 was realised in February,” said town treasurer Sheperd Kamba.
“Residents have also come forward and agreed with council on payment plans so that we recover $5,5 million we are owed.”
Council, added Kamba, would be left with no option but to take legal action against “hard-core debtors” in a town whose residents are mostly informal traders.