Chitungwiza Municipality owed $2bn

📅 Published: August 21, 2025

📰 Source: thestandard

Curated by AllZimNews.com

Acting finance director Robert Nyikadzino implored ratepayers to pay their bills on time to avoid the funds being eroded by inflation. “We encourage our ratepayers to pay their bills timeously before the funds are eroded by inflation in order for the organisation to provide improved service delivery,” Nyikadzino said in the report. “In order to hedge our tariffs against inflation, we are proposing to rebase our budget to United States dollars using January 1 figures.

Hence, the rent card will be rebased to US$15 or equivalent.

We encourage ratepayers to pay in US$ so that we are able to procure fuel without challenges. ” Nyikadzino said service providers were charging exorbitant prices in local currency. “Those few who are accepting local currency are charging exorbitant prices,” he said.

Chitungwiza Residents and Ratepayers Association chairperson Arthur Taderera, however, said the proposed US$15 rent card was beyond the reach of suffering ordinary citizens. “Budgeting is done for the majority.

The root cause of ratepayers’ debts is that council doesn’t come clear on what it uses the little money it gets for. ” Chitungwiza and Manyame Rural Residents Association secretary Brighton Mazhindu said: “There is a lot of mistrust between the ratepayers and council.

That’s why the former is not paying rates. “There is, therefore, a need for the technocrats and councillors to think outside the box.

They are relying much on traditional revenue sources yet the Urban Councils Act gives councils powers to do income-generating projects. ” The war in Ukraine had magnified the slowdown in the global economy, which was now entering what could become “a protracted period of feeble growth and elevated inflation,” the World Bank said in its Global Economic Prospects report, warning that the outlook could still grow worse.

Last month German Foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, a leader of the Green Party, which entered a coalition government last fall with Prime Minister Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, pledged that Germany would stop importing oil from Russia by the end of 2022, and wean itself off Russian natural gas as soon as possible.

In the short-term, that may mean finding alternative suppliers for fossil fuels, including the United States.

BY BART STAR-JAMES United States President Joe Biden does not seem to know where he is as history slowly turns its wheels of fortune to the east.

A talking head of him or an acolyte frequently appears on our screens spewing out threatening diatribes of vindictiveness and sanctions against Russia completely oblivious of the imminent […]. 🔗

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