Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Cash-strapped Harare City Council has given its heads of departments revenue targets as the local authority, which is saddled with debts amounting to $400 million, seeks ways of improving income.
Those unable to meet the targets will be arraigned before the Human Resources Committee.
Mayor Councillor Herbert Gomba said heads whose departments do not deal with revenue have also been given service delivery targets.
“Yes, our Finance and Development Committee met and looked at what council is owed by residents and what we owe service providers.
“We discovered that council is owing service providers about $400 million despite being owed around $800 million,” he said.
“The new thrust at Town House is to make sure that revenue is collected to the maximum level. We have seen that so many people are not paying licence fees and so we would want people to pay (for) their licences. We have also seen that many divisional heads who have oversight in terms of revenue collection were not given targets.”
Clr Gomba said council has set targets and was demanding maximum performance from every head.
He said the targets do not only pertain to revenue collection, but also to service delivery. “That which is coming must be used for service delivery. We want to tighten up all areas in terms of revenue collection and we want quarterly reports on service delivery. We are going to announce the next phase of the 100-Day Plan, having (to) assess the previous one,” he said.
“The next one will be anchored on the need to deliver services to our people using the available resources.
“Our traffic police has been directed to bring in revenue and de-congest the city. We have also directed our market officers, district officers, city valuations and estates management team, planning section and housing to resuscitate revenue streams.”
He said council has to refurbish infrastructure and that can only be achieved if council is pulling in one direction with everyone meeting their obligations.
