The council’s collection efficiency is currently between 30% and 36%, which is insufficient to address the city’s service delivery challenges.

KADOMA City Council is struggling to provide essential services to its residents due to a debt of $24,699,030 million from taxpayers from January to August this year, NewsDay reports.

The council’s collection efficiency is currently between 30% and 36%, which is insufficient to address the city’s service delivery challenges.

According to Kadoma Mayor Nigel Ruzario, the lack of payment is largely due to the inability of the municipality to provide the expected services.

“They are not paying because we are not providing the expected services, especially water to the residents, and in order for us to provide services, we need money,” Ruzario said.

Residents have expressed frustration at the council’s priorities, citing cases where money is spent on non-essential services while basic needs such as water remain unmet.

National high density owes council US$15,266,586, trade (US$2,118,820), industry (US$2,726,087), institutions government (US$288,260), schools (US$249,019), churches (US$103,263), density (US$292,2017), municipality US$ 83,525, tuckshops (US$ 61,033), homeless people (US$ 4,878), homeless ovens (US$ 86,317), agro-residents (US$ 680,718) and small and medium-sized businesses have a debt of US$ 108,508 US

Some residents have not received water for the past two decades, despite paying for the service since 2015.

Carlos Nyoni, a resident, said taxpayers demanded better value for their money from Kadoma City Council.

“Some people have not received the services they should have paid for. It has been mentioned many times that certain people have not received water for between five and 20 years. I have paid for certain services since 2015, which I never received,” Nyoni said.

“People are getting upset because they see money being spent on things that are not a priority for Kadoma residents.

“People are demanding transparency, commitment and accountability from Kadoma City Council.

“I believe that to encourage people to pay rates and services, there is a need for Kadoma City Council to take some obvious and tangible steps to restore trust.”

Philimon Chinyoka, another resident, expressed optimism about the improvement in the payment of fees.

“There is still a strong possibility of increasing the compliance rate to at least 60%. Our numbers are not that bad, there is still room for improvement. The general perception among residents is that we pay the council bills because we have water in the tap,” he stated.

“Water is the push/motivation factor for residents to pay their monthly bills to the council, regardless of whether the monthly bills are made up of services other than water. It’s much easier to motivate people to pay their bills when they have water.

“A cross-check of the financial analysis of other cities (towns and cities with better water supply to residents) will show that their compliance rates are around 60-66%. Like Kadoma, we can also register that rate as long as we have water.”

According to a recently released Auditor General report, Kadoma Municipality had 2,541 non-functional water meters last year, creating difficulties in accurately measuring water usage and charging customers accordingly.

Council director Pikirai Mazanhi confirmed the huge debt book and said the failure to collect money was affecting the provision of essential services such as water, sanitation and waste management.

“To address this, the council needs to improve revenue collection and communication with residents, ensuring transparency and accountability,” he said.

“Residents are more likely to pay off their debts if they trust that their payments will improve service delivery. The city should develop a fair payment plan without resorting to aggressive collection methods. While raising tariffs could be considered, this should be done cautiously given current economic pressures.”

According to a 2023 report published by Unicef ​​​​and the World Health Organization, worldwide, 1.8 billion people live in homes without water supplies.

Kadoma Central MP Gift Mambipiri stressed the importance of addressing the water crisis, saying it should be the council’s top priority.

However, the disbursement of funds from the Constituency Development Fund remains uncertain.

“Residents must pay their current 30% rates for the council to provide services,” Mambipiri said.

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