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A TEAM of valuers had been dispatched to Victoria Falls to undertake a valuation of properties to ascertain the justification by the local authority to increase rates by 650 percent.

The move by council has attracted sharp criticism from business, particularly the tourism sector who said the increase would make the town even more expensive and scare away tourists.

The “unilateral” hike has seen three hotels in the resort town, Kingdom Hotel, The Victoria Falls Hotel and Elephant Hills Hotel, being dragged to court for allegedly failing to service their water and rates accounts.

The Victoria Falls Municipality dragged the three hospitality industry firms to court for allegedly failing to pay more than $380,000 in rates and water charges accrued over an unspecified period.

Local Government acting permanent secretary, Joseph Mhakayakora, told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Environment, Water, Tourism and Hospitality Industry yesterday that a team of valuers had been dispatched to the town to undertake a valuation of properties to ascertain whether or not the rates were reasonable.

“The team will complete its field work in August and they’ll compile their report by the end of September and then the local authority will advertise the results. And if there are any objections, these will be looked at by the valuation board,” he said.

Mhakayakora said by late November the valuations would be certified and implemented from January next year.

He defended the increase saying that the new rates, which were part of the 2015 budget, had been increased after wide consultation.

“The approval was granted after carrying out a meticulous analysis of the previous rates that were charged prior to the increase, which were sub-economic,” said Mhakayakora.

He said the increase was also necessitated by cost drivers such as transport to ferry goods to the resort town, supplier tariffs, water, electricity and maintenance of infrastructure. This, he added, was exacerbated by debt-write offs imposed by the government in 2013.

Mhakayakora said the hike would enable the council to break even.

“Before the hike, some services were being charged as low as a dollar, which was sub-economic and suicidal,” he said, adding that Victoria Falls was not a cheap place to do business.

The principal director responsible for urban local authorities, Erica Jones, told the committee that the hike was not new but had been suspended at dollarisation in 2009 when local residents, including the business sector, complained that the rates were too high.

She said the council reduced rates by 600 percent at the time and reinstated them when it was “felt that the environment was now conducive for the original rates.”

Jones said the highest rates were not higher than $9,000 per month for businesses.

However, she said the complaints had not been channelled properly. As procedure ratepayers would negotiate with their local authority and if they fail to agree, both the district and provincial administrators were empowered to arbitrate, she said.

“Unfortunately the ratepayers didn’t follow that procedure. And the first time we knew that that there was an objection was when the minister (of tourism) came to visit the minister of local government,” she said.

Victoria Falls Municipality is demanding $166,457.51 from Elephant Hills and $125,676.32 from The Victoria Falls Hotel. The Kingdom Hotel has a cumulative debt of $91,762.63.

The municipality, in its summons filed through their lawyers Dube and Company Legal Practitioners, said the three hotels had continuously failed, refused or neglected to settle the outstanding amounts despite demand.

According to the court papers, Victoria Falls is demanding that the three hospitality firms pay the debts with prescribed interest calculated from the date the summons were issued to the date of full and final payment and cost of suit at attorney-client scale.

Recently the municipality rejected pressure from the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) to reduce rates that tourism operators in the resort town say are very high.

The local authority argued that it acted within the confines of the law in crafting its 2015 budget, which was approved by the government, hence could not reverse it.

A few weeks ago, the Victoria Falls business community that is dominated by tour operators, hotels and lodges, threatened to withdraw various charity work and developmental projects in the resort town after council hiked rates by more than 500 percent. Chronicle Reporter/The Source.