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Midlands Correspondent
THE Gweru City Council could be losing millions of dollars in potential revenue after it emerged that infill stands, which were allocated by the local authority do not appear on the Surveyor General’s map and the council database. As a result thousands of residents mainly in the suburbs of Mkoba, Ascot, Senga and Northlea among others, where a majority of infill stands are located, have not been paying bills and rates to council for years.

Chairperson of the commission running Gweru, Tsunga Mhangami, yesterday confirmed the developments. He said the local authority has since instituted an audit. “We’ve challenges in the city whereby we’ve stands, which were allocated by previous councils in undesignated areas and these stands don’t appear on the Surveyor-General’s map up to now,” Mhangami told The Chronicle.

“This is because some of these areas were not meant for housing development. They (houses) might have addresses but the addresses aren’t captured on the council database.

“Therefore, we’re embarking on a water audit starting this afternoon (yesterday) in the city and those people who are on stands enjoying connected water and not paying it will be a thing of the past. So they must come and regularise themselves because we’re going to visit every household to make sure they’re paying their dues to council.”

The development comes as the local authority has been struggling to improve service delivery to residents as well as paying its 1,200 strong workforce on time due to erratic revenue collections.

Mhangami, a former Masvingo Town Clerk said as taming the wage bill, which had risen to $1,6millon under suspended councillors was a priority. So far the commission has cut the wage bill to $1,2 million. He said the $400,000 saved from the rationalisation exercise would be channelled to service delivery, mainly refuse collection.

As part of measures to ensure a steady revenue flow, the council has also began an exercise to flush out meter readers who are receiving bribes from residents so they do not cut water supplies.

“We’re encouraging residents not to bribe meter readers because when you bribe them your bill is unchanged and you will still need to fork out more money to settle your arrears. “As we speak yesterday we conducted disciplinary hearings for five water meter readers who were nabbed while receiving bribes from residents,” he said.