Taurai Masamba
The City of Harare’s plans to dollarise the debt that is owed by residents and other stakeholders has angered many residents.
The municipality announced yesterday on social media that it intended to dollarise any debts that remain outstanding three months after debtors are invited to negotiate repayment plans.
“Residents who fail to retire their debts within three months of being invited to negotiate payment plans will have their outstanding debts converted to United States dollars at the interbank rate and pay the debts in US$,” the municipality posted on its Twitter handle yesterday.
The local authority justified the unpopular decision by arguing that the unpaid debt were losing value owing to inflation.
“Money owed to council is losing value daily and when it is finally paid, it will not meet its budgeted targets. Hedging the debts against the United States dollar will help council maintain value when it’s finally paid,” the City of Harare contended.
The residents were not amused by the local authority’s threats.
“The City of Harare should learn to listen to ratepayers and stop issuing useless threats against ratepayers. You have no functional billing system so until you have one, do not make threats,” the Harare Residents Trust (HRT) responded.
One resident, Munya Murapa queried the rationale of the intended debt dollarisation citing the fact that city was not paying its workforce on foreign currency. He reminded the municipality that one of the reasons the residents accumulated debts was its non-delivery of basic services.
“Nonsense! Are you paying your workers in USD? You want to charge us in USD for services not provided. No water, no street lights, very poor roads, tall grass on most road verges, uncollected garbage, dirty city centre etc. USD for what? Be serious,” he commented.
Other citizens like Lucian Zvinaiye Chikore questioned the legality of the municipality’s planned move.
“Convert to USD as a punitive measure? USD, did you import the water or the land (rates)? In terms of what law? Affordability issues to consider! Other debts have prescribed after all! Arbitrariness is wrongful and unlawful!” he submitted.
“If you have failed in discharging your obligations please resign and allow for more able people to manage current collections and mop up the debt. Resorting to currency arbitrage that borders on illegality does not bode well for the second largest revenue collector in Zimbabwe,” weighed in one Velempini.
Other residents argued that both the local currency and the US Dollar were still tender in Zimbabwe so the municipality could not denominate debts in the latter and force debtors to pay in US Dollars.
“In as much as you want people to pay but using this approach you might face many legal challenges, because the Government’s position still stands on the use of both currencies,” contended Steve Mathambo Ngoma.
The City of Harare, which claimed to be owed a total of US$17 billion by residents and other debtors, did not respond to any of the concerns raised by the residents.
The City of Harare, whose successive councils have been dominated by the opposition since 2000, has failed to run the capital city resulting in some residents choosing not to pay for services which were not delivered. This has been worsened by the fact that the local authority has been operating without a reliable billing system for almost two years now, causing residents to dispute bills which are based on thumb suck.
