This has become a matter of serious concern requiring urgent intervention by the city authorities. Residents are left wondering whether or not they really deserve the leadership of these two strategic institutions. The Harare Residents Trust (HRT) is being overwhelmed by disgruntled residents who are finding it extremely difficult to cope with the ever increasing utility bills, despite attempts to settle their bills.
The City billing should reflect the actual cost of services being rendered rather than estimating the cost of services not consistently rendered. The residents’ experience of the billing system that is in place in City of Harare has led to despair and hopelessness. What is most disturbing is that the most vulnerable and disadvantaged population are the victims of the faulty billing system.
The minimum reductions on the rates of senior citizens do not reflect in their accounts. There are apparent inconsistencies in the bills that are emanating from Rowan Martin Building, the headquarters of the City Treasury, which have created unnecessary anxiety among the citizenry. This has led citizens calling it the ‘Rotten Building’.
It is particularly worrying that a whole city treasury department has failed to address residents’ or consumers’ concerns without resorting to retrogressive and controversial reactionary measures like issuing 24-hour letters of demand for the full payment of the debt owed by a resident, or the issuing of summons. Citizens are asking simple questions and expect simple responses.
For example; there are thousands of residents across Harare who have not paid a single cent to the City of Harare since February 2009 when the multi-currency system was introduced. What we have observed and experienced through hundreds of drop-in cases that pass through HRT Offices is that some of those who have consistently paid their monthly rates have higher bills than those who have not bothered to make any payments.
To make matters worse there have been reports that employees at local district offices are refusing to accept small payments by residents. In one particular case a resident
from Mufakose last paid her monthly dues to the City in April 2010 and recently got a summons demanding that she pay the total amount owed.
Another resident from Mbare National has been receiving a monthly bill indicating that she owes the City US$985-00 which has not decreased despite making US$50-00 monthly payments. When challenging these and other billing inconsistencies most citizens are being referred to the city treasury department at Rowan Martin Building for clarification of their huge bills.
To address this systems failure, the City of Harare needs to devote significant financial and human resources to network the billing infrastructure, so that bill settlement can be done at any city hall and reflect in citizens’ accounts, to retrain treasury personnel especially the cashiers on how to use information technology in basic data capturing and to invest in the computerization of the City Treasury Department. – PRECIOUS SHUMBA, Harare Residents Trust
Post published in: Letters to the Editor