Gwanda councillor urges residents to pay up their bills

Gwanda Municipality Councillor for ward 7 Jaston Mazhale of the MDC T has urged residents of Gwanda to settle their municipal bills timeously to enable council to operate well.

Councillor Mazhale made the calls amidst revelations that council employees are threatening to go on an industrial action for unpaid wages. The Municipal employees are reported to be in their third month without getting their salaries.

The Municipality together with all other urban councils in the country recently cancelled of residents debts amounting to $3 million dollars and this has crippled the council according to the councillor.

"Residents must show appreciation to government for cancelling their debts by paying up their current debts. Council is really battling to function without money and its only source of income is rates and taxes from the residents," said Councillor Mazhale.

The Council also recently tendered out all its income generating projects like liquor outlets and a tuck-shop which according to Mazhale has dwindled the council's revenue base.

"We don't understand as new council why and how the old council came up with the idea of leasing out the profitable liquor outlets. The people leasing the outlets are running them profitably and managing to pay council rent and their staff wages which means the outlets are profitable and so doesn't make sense why the outlets must be leased out at rent less than the profits council would have generated."

Councillor Mazhale further indicated that the leasing resolution is amongst many other resolutions that their council will quickly look at reversing.

"We have a lot of resolutions from previous council that we must rescind and one of them is the leasing out of the liquor outlets. It must be reconsidered quickly cause council needs the income."

Asked for his general comment on how he is going to make his views through a Zanu-PF dominated council where only three councils are not from the ruling party, Mazhale indicated that he was very happy in the council and they are working very well with other councillors.

"This is a very good council to work in. We are all children of Gwanda and we grew up together and we know the challenges and aspirations of the town very well and have agreed to work collectively for the good of the town," he said.

"We agreed with all the other councillors that as soon as we enter council chambers we will all take off our party jackets and solve the issues of Gwanda as residents of Gwanda."

Mazhale's statements come in the wake of his party the MDC-T suspending with intention to dismiss several of its councillors in other local authorities who also "worked with" Zanu-PF and voted for Zanu-PF mayors in councils the MDC-T dominated. None of the three Gwanda opposition councillors were voted into chairing any council committees a resolution believed to have been passed at a Zanu-PF caucus before council sat to elect committee chairpersons.