Gwanda council unleashes debt collectors on residents

COUNCIL has unleashed debt collectors on residents as part of efforts to boost revenue collections in a move that has court the ire of residents in the Matabeleland South capital.

Disgruntled Gwanda residents, through Gwanda Residents Association (GRA), have moved to engage the town's authorities over the matter.

They argue that council had agreed to suspend the use of debt collectors in a meeting held in June this year but barely three months into the agreement, Wellcash Debt Collectors was back haunting them.

"We refer to the commitments made by His Worship the Mayor and councillors in a series of public meetings held with residents that the use of debt collectors to recover council debts remains suspended until a thorough debt audit exercise is executed," said GRA secretary-general, Bekezela Maduma Fuzwayo, in a September 26, letter.

The letter was addressed to town clerk Priscilla Nkala and Gwanda mayor Knowledge Ndlovu.

"We view the revival of the use of debt collectors on residents as yet again another unfair and uncivil deliberate denigration on commitments and undertakings made to residents by the council. As residents, we reiterate that council cannot execute debt collectors on residents on debts that we all agreed to be inflated, incoherent and unrealistic," he said.

Fuzwayo said it was unfortunate that council had the temerity to engage debt collectors yet it conceded that it had been overcharging residents by using estimate water bills.

"The council acknowledged the erratic billing on residents' accounts...we have continuously implored that these amounts be revisited before any actions to recover them are put in place," he said.

"We therefore by means of this correspondence repeat and invite that the debt collectors be yet again immediately stopped from communicating with and harassing residents until the above is adhered to," Fuzwayo said.

However, Ndlovu told the Southern News that the decision was meant to push residents to settle their outstanding bills, as council was now owed over $4 million.

"The situation is bad . . . our monthly revenue collection has gone down by 30 percent from our average monthly collection of $480 000 per month to $130 000. So, we really have to act, otherwise, service delivery will go down and we also fail to pay workers and that will mean more problems for us, "he said.

"We have never stopped. Debt collection has always been an on-going process. In fact, we have had the debt collection company for the past three years," Ndlovu argued.

"We normally send reminders, which means we will be simply reminding you to pay what you owe the council but you get to a stage that you have to tighten up the screws because people sometimes see the reminders and just ignore and at the same time they don't pay," he said.

The mayor, however, agreed that there were incidents where residents were over-billed and the affected parties had the right to lodge complaints with the local authority.

This comes as Harare residents went up in arms with their council after the capital city hired the same company to improve its revenue collection.

Following the outcry, Harare City Council backed down and cancelled Wellcash's contract, but later reengaged on its decision to residents' disappointment.