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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, [email protected]

BULAWAYO councillors yesterday demanded an immediate halt to the seizure of residents’ properties over outstanding bills and ordered the local authority to first attend to its flawed billing system.

Contributing during one of the longest full council meetings ever, the councillors said the city’s billing system was chaotic and admitted that helpless residents were paying the price of the anomaly through higher bills at a time when the city was also experiencing acute water shortages.

Ward 13 Councillor Susan Sithole said she has received numerous complaints from her constituency over the ever-increasing water bills despite the city being under a 120-hour water-shedding programme.

“I have brought with me here a letter of demand from an Emakhandeni resident from the city council where the resident must pay a bill of over US$500 or risk having their property attached and sold through auction,” she said. “This is only a single letter; we have many residents facing a similar predicament. How do we justify these bills to the residents when taps are dry? Council must first look at the billing issue before resorting to attaching property.” 

Ward Six Councillor Nkosilathi Hove said it was unfair for the council to continue attaching residents’ properties for non-payment of bills, particularly water bills, when its system was flawed, adding that attachment of properties must immediately be stopped.

“Let’s stop these attachments and put our house in order first. It is agreed that the billing system is archaic and naturally, it is bound to have mistakes but we continue transferring our failures to residents,” he said. 

“If the system was effective, we would be able to inform our residents that they have used a lot of water but right now we can’t. I propose that we put our house in order first.” 

Last month council announced that it was owed a staggering US$50 million by debtors and had since resorted to attaching properties, mainly residential, to recover what it is being owed with over 2 000 households having their water supplies disconnected.

Councillor Arshton Mhlanga of Ward 15 said a recently held workshop on billing, which was attended by all councillors made it clear that the billing system was fundamentally flawed and residents must not be used as sacrificial lambs for a service they did not enjoy. 

He said the only way out of this anomaly was the adoption of a smart metering system.

“At that workshop, it was explicitly agreed that the city’s billing system doesn’t work. We can’t have a situation where residents are billed for services that they never received. Water only comes out for a day, maximum two days but a resident gets a bill of well over US$290 hence our position at the workshop to the finance department was that we must adopt smart metering.

“If water only came out of the taps for one day, let people pay for that,” said Clr Mhlanga.

A smart water meter, or digital water meter, is a modern device that measures and monitors water consumption in homes, businesses, and other facilities. Unlike traditional water meters that rely on manual readings by utility personnel, smart water meters have various sensors and communication capabilities that allow for automated data collection and transmission.

Clr Mhlanga said the smart meter billing system will help the council in revenue collection and clearing of debt, which in turn assists councillors in their oversight role over management who have always pointed to low revenue sources in implementing some council resolutions.