The City of Harare’s Twitter activity has been something to behold. Over the last year, we have seen the local authority make pronouncements of new requirements and measures that the public will need to adhere to. This has been both good and bad, but we will get to that in a little bit. The thing I want to start with is the latest decree from the City of Harare which says that those who owe the authority have been given three months to meet their commitment or they will have to pay the USD equivalent of that sum (United States Dollars).
Residents who fail to retire their debts within three months of being invited to negotiate payment plans will have their outstanding debts converted to United States dollars at the interbank rate and pay the debts in US$. Council owed over US$17 billion.
Prices of goods and services that the city procures from service providers are pegged on black market rates. Our budget is pegged at the prevailing interbank rate. The difference in the two exchange rates adversely affects service delivery.
City of Harare on Twitter
So it looks like the threats of debt collectors and blacklisting didn’t work. The local city council has stepped up its efforts by trying to hit those who are absconding from their bills where it hurts, hard currency… But before we get into that let’s take a little trip down who owes the City Council what and how the local authority has been managing without the reported outstanding amount.
Who owes the City of Harare the most money?
The US$17 billion that was stated by the City of Harare is difficult to wrap one’s head around because it is several orders of magnitude higher than Zimbabwe’s national budget which stood at US$2.6 billion in 2020. Furthermore and according to the Sunshine News from October 2021 (the authorities Newsletter), the council’s debt stood at ZWL$14 billion which is a far cry from the US$17 billion that was quoted in the tweet. Maybe there was a mistake when it came to the currency?
Anyway, in that same newsletter from October 2021, the breakdown was as follows:
- Domestic Users – ZWL$5 billion
- Businesses – ZWL$4 billion
- Industry – ZWL$2 billion
- Government – ZWL$500 million
If you do the maths then the total comes to ZWL$11.5 billion meaning there is ZWL$2.5 billion which wasn’t attributed to any entity. What this means, I cannot be sure, however, that is something that might need some clarification, lest speculation and finger-pointing start about the nature of the remainder.
And I remind you all that these figures are from October and in that report from the City Council the money owed had ballooned by ZWL$8 billion from the sum preciously reported in June 2021.
So how has the council been able to meet its commitment (or lack thereof) in service delivery with all of this money being unaccounted for?
The City of Harare’s borrowing powers for 2022
According to another Tweet by the City of Harare, the local council put out this breakdown about just how much it will be financed in 2022. All of this is in line with the Urban Councils Act [Chapter 29:15]
| Borrowing Power | Area | Amount ZWL |
| 1 | Waste Management | 261 500 200 |
| 2 | Water | 100 000 000 |
| 3 | Health | 163 500 000 |
| 4 | Road infrastructure | 16 800 000 |
| 5 | Traffic management | 73 400 000 |
| 6 | Public Lighting | 322 400 600 |
| 7 | Rowan Martin Building | 120 000 000 |
| 8 | Service vehicles | 98 750 000 |
| 9 | ICT | 11 500 000 |
| 10 | Revenue Collection | 70 000 000 |
| 11 | Corporate Communication | 8 250 000 |
| 12 | Emergency Services | 68 980 000 |
| 13 | Social Amenities | 46 000 000 |
| TOTAL | ZWL$1 361 080 800 |
The City of Harare has followed, as far as I have read, the requirements in the Urban Councils Act Section 290. Anyone who wants to dispute the Council’s proposals can do so by contacting the Town Clerk before the 7th of April 2022. Funny enough, on the contacts for the Town Clerk was a PO BOX. It’s 2022, the first contact should be a phone number or an email address. I should mention that the picture posted on Twitter was cut off, so maybe there was something there but I think digital forms should have been first.
The matter of “does this sum go far enough?” is one I can’t speculate on with any sort of accuracy. However, from what I have personally seen over the years there is a massive shortfall in service delivery for refuse, water and other amenities like traffic light management and many other things…
So to this USD conversion of debts owed to City of Harare
As mentioned earlier this is an inventive way by the local authority to come after the money owed. The City of Harare seems to be aware that they also need to preserve value because they, like all of us, have to contend with the depreciating local currency vs the USD, as well as the war of the rates. So it makes some sense that they would want to maintain the value of the sums outstanding even if it is just at the official rate.
That being said, this could be a slippery slope to getting all services provided by the City Council quoted in USD at some point in the future. This sort of action might not be in the realm of possibility (in my opinion) because the government is pushing hard for the ZWL$. However, as you all well know, things change overnight. So this is something that we can’t completely rule out…
Almost forgot…
In the beginning, I mentioned that the City of Harare’s communication was a good and bad thing. Well, to the former, I have seen a lot of the local authority’s official statements (in picture format) floating around in WhatsApp groups. This means that those with access to broader internet services are doing a great service for their fellow Zimbabweans who might only have access to a WhatsApp bundle.
However, and to the latter, we need these messages to be disseminated on a zero-rated or data-free platform. The City of Harare is not the only culprit in this respect. The entire Zimbabwean government’s information archive should be accessible for free across all mobile network operators and internet service providers. Public information from authorities shouldn’t have to cost the taxpayer a cent to access.
You should also check out
Last year the City of Harare posted a series of tweets that mandated things like dog licences, civilians not being allowed to control traffic at intersections with dead signal lights and many more. If you know us, you’ll know we had something to say about that. You can download or listen to that conversation with the player below or you can access it with the link here.
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