By Sukuoluhle Ndlovu
Masvingo City Council needs $48 000 to pay wages for parking staff employees despite not being able to collect any revenue during the national lock down which will end on 3 May 2020.
The Masvingo City Council collects its revenue from fees paid by residents and rate payers.
Since the national lockdown, no resident has been making payments even though there are merchant and biller codes for residents and rate payers to make payments. This has cost the Council a lot of revenue required in the provision of services.
$48 000 is needed for wages only said the Town Clerk, Edward Mukaratirwa.
“We collect an average of $60,000 per month as the City Council and we were not able to collect anything since the national lockdown. Despite not collecting any revenue the Council still has to pay $48,000 in wages to the parking staff despite not being able to collect anything during the national lock down and this has created a financial hole,” he said.
The parking staff has not been working too since the national lock down as their services are not considered essential.
The revenue collected by the City Council is also used to sustain it’s operations.
“Revenue we collect from parking zones is used to sustain the operations of the council like wages, road markings and signage, stationery etc and with the small surplus going to road maintenance in the city. We came up with Parking zones with the main objective to decongest the CBD by rationing the scarce parking space to allow for orderly flow of traffic hence also revenue for the council.”
The national lockdown is meant to curb the spread of COVID 19 and maintain the World Health Organisation mandate of social distance hence most business are closed.
I Masvingo city council has since been struggling resulting in failure to provide the necessary services for the residents and ratepayers.
