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Oliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has extended a 50 percent discount incentive to industry and commerce to mid this year to ease operational constraints on firms and encourage quick payment.

According to a latest council report, the local authority recommended the move citing poor economic performance, which has seen most firms and individual ratepayers failing to clear their arrears.

The city council unveiled the initial scheme last year when companies, who owed up to $2.2 million, were discounted.

“It was recommended that the council extends the scheme up to June 2015 as the current economic environment was indeed bleak. However, the status quo should remain, that is, 50 percent of the debt will still apply to the December balance and arrears be paid to date,” said the local authority.

It said a number of companies had given reasons among them that they were not able to clear their debts and thus needed additional time. At the beginning of 2014, BCC announced a cocktail of incentives meant to ease the burden on local companies.

In the past few years, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, once the industrial hub, has continued to suffer massive de-industrialisation compounded by the prevailing economic challenges.

So far, more than 100 companies have closed down in Bulawayo rendering at least 20,000 people jobless. According to the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, the country’s manufacturing sector needs about $8 billion to retool and stimulate productivity to competitive levels.