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Lovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
THREE local authorities in the Midlands are operating without approved budgets after their drafts were rejected by the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister. Gweru City Council, Kwekwe City Council and Redcliff Municipality are using last year’s budgets, six months into the 2015 financial year.

The ministry rejected the budgets on the grounds that they did not meet the directive that 70 percent of revenue collected be channelled towards service delivery with the remainder going towards the payment of salaries.

Heavy lobbying by residents also contributed to the rejection of the budgets.

Gweru is battling to deliver basic services such as the maintenance of roads and provision of water.

Its proposed $31.5 million budget, which reflected a 35 percent increase from 2014, was turned down.

The local authority’s assistant to the town clerk in charge of public relations, Tapiwa Marerwa said council had sent amendments to the initial budget and is awaiting a response from the Minister, Cde Ignatius Chombo.

“We’re still using last year’s budget but we’ve now sent a revised budget and I’m sure the minister would have responded by Tuesday next week,” said Marerwa.

Kwekwe Mayor, Councillor Matenda Madzoke said he had been informed that the local authority’s financial plan had been approved but the city was still waiting for written confirmation from the minister to implement it.

“We sent our officials to Harare last week and they were told that the budget had been approved but we’re now waiting for formal communication from the minister.

“The delay in approving the budget has affected us in the provision of services especially on water because we raised the water tariff in the proposed budget as we had all along been subsidising residents on water treatment chemicals. We now don’t have anywhere where we can recover the shortfall because of funding constraints,” said the Kwekwe Mayor.

The local authority had its budget turned down on the basis that top management salaries and other perks needed to be slashed.

Redcliff Mayor, Clr Freddy Kapuya said his council had submitted a revised $9 million budget from the initial $16 million budget council had put forward to the minister.

Among some of the proposals which were scrapped was the purchase of the mayoral vehicle as well as those of top management and the hiring of employees which the minister said should be put on hold.Clr Kapuya said the municipality is expecting feedback from the minister by the end of next week.