Beitbridge Town Council has with immediate effect started cutting water supplies to defaulters collectively owing more than $5 million in unpaid bills.
BY OWN CORRESPONDENT
On December 5, 2016, the council made a written appeal to residents to honour their bills or risk being disconnected.
“Most people ignored our appeal and we are left with no option,” town secretary, Loud Ramagkapola said in an interview yesterday.
“We are owed, as at September, $5 million.”
The biggest culprits were residentials, mostly in the high-density, who owe $3 million.
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Government departments owe $70 000 and the rest was in the industries and commercial sections.
Council operatives were yesterday going around disconnecting supplies to residents.
Most Zimbabweans are not paying water bills in anticipation that the ruling Zanu PF would instruct local authorities to cancel debts to woo voters ahead of the 2018 elections.
Shortly before the 2013 elections, the Zanu PF government cancelled water debts and gave free electricity units to individual users.
But this left councils financially crippled.