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Victoria Falls, one of the country’s major tourists attraction sites

Senior Reporter
CASH-strappeD Victoria Falls Municipality is set to announce a supplementary budget at the end of this month and will press ahead with the tolling of tourists, the Town Clerk, Christopher Dube, has said. In a recent interview, Dube said the budget would be pro-poor. “Come June 30, council is going to announce a supplementary budget which is going to see some major increases in rates and services for industry and the rich people. It will be pro-poor,” he said.
Dube also said plans by the municipality to introduce tolls for tourists would go ahead.

He said one way or the other, the municipality had to raise revenue to settle loans including the $4 million they got from the government ahead of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) general assembly held last year in August. Operators last week said they were not going to support the tolling of tourists.

“If these operators are not supporting the tolling of tourists, they will have to fork out that money from their coffers. We are going ahead with the project. We need to raise revenue from somewhere,” Dube said.

Meanwhile, Dube said council recently passed a resolution barring the hiring of external debt collectors after residents cried foul over the move.
“We are now going to come up with an internal debt collecting system. But we call upon residents to bear with us and pay even the little they have to settle their bills. A lot of companies and residents continue to default on paying rates, threatening service delivery,” he said.

A government directive last year saw councils across the country scraping residents’ debts – a move that has resulted in them experiencing serious cashflow problems.