Mutare Municipality authorities have defended their decision to introduce water rationing in residential suburbs as a cost cutting measure to try and recoup ever-escalating production coasts which have skyrocketed with over 100 percent.
By Donald Nyarota
Mutare Mayor Councillor Blessing Thandi said the central government could not approve their supplementary budget, leaving them with no other option but to resort to water rationing as a cost cutting measure.
Thandi said Mutare city had prepared a supplementary budget which had proposed a tariff increase of 80 percent, but central government could not approve the proposed budget.
“The issue of water rationing is based on production costs. Right now we are working on a budget whereby the cost of water production has risen from around $150 000 to $1,5 million as we speak.
“We have increased our tariffs but it’s not to an extent that we can be able to bankroll our production costs hence the reason why we are trying to limit and ration our water in such a way that it will cushion in terms of costs,” said Thandi.
He added, “We are trying to address issues whereby residents go for days without water for example in Dangamvura. In our water rationing plan we are trying to ensure that each residential area gets access to water. The majority of our funds come from our stakeholders in the local government area, which is high to medium density suburbs, whose budget has not yet been approved as we speak right now.”
The Mayor added that the Minister of Local Government has not yet approved the 2019 supplementary budget despite the onset of the 2020 budget formulation.
“We have have written to the Minister seeking approval to increase our rates in the local government area in a cost recovery ration whereby sewerage and water will be increased without the approval of our budget.
“There is a danger of us having a mix up of the 2019 and the 2020 budgets as the 2019 budget took long to prepare and submit to the relevant ministry while we have started preparations for the 2020 budget. This then leaves us with a lot of confusion on how we can have the 2020 budget when we have a supplementary budget for 2019 that is still to be approved. The mix up has given u a real challenge in terms of viability,” said Thandi
