THE Bulawayo City Council’s ultimatum to defaulting Nkulumane residents to clear their bills or face legal action has been received with anger by residents’ associations who have branded the move an intimidation.
LINDA CHINOBVA OWN CORRESPONDENT
Residents were last week issued with letters from the Nkulumane Housing office stating that they had to clear their debts within seven days failure to which would result in legal action.
“The above amount be paid at Nkulumane Housing office within seven days of this letter.
“Should you fail to pay in full by this date I shall be obliged to take legal action without further warning for the recovery of the amount,” part of the letter reads.
Bulawayo Progressive Residents’ Association (Bpra) organising secretary Ambrose Sibindi said the move was not practical and merely served to frustrate residents.
“We understand that the residents have to pay up their debts, but for the city council to give them an ultimatum is rather not practical and this will only intimidate and frustrate residents who obviously have no sufficient funds to clear the debts within a short period,” Sibindi said.
“We are not supporting a notion that residents should not pay up their debts, but we cannot overlook the fact that people have different challenges and the city council has to be realistic and take their time to hear out these challenges and then come up with solutions because ultimatums are not genuine,” he said.
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Sibindi said the local authority must create room for payment plans ad accept payment arrangements from its defaulters.
He said council must also put into consideration that it has not fully delivered services to residents and the residents have been patient with it.
He said Bpra was set to engage council in a bid to retract the ultimatum which was causing distress to residents.
Bulawayo Residents’ Association chairperson Winos Dube said there was no need for council to issue ultimatums and urged the local authority to instead embark on reasonable payment arrangements with debtors.
“We do not see the need of the council to go to the extent of issuing out letters that warn the residents of legal action as this will result in an unstable community or fighting mood,” Dube said.
“The only way this can be resolved is if the council makes payment arrangements with its debtors because the residents genuinely would not be able to pay within seven days if they have been failing to pay for over a month.”
He said residents had been failing to clear their debts because of the estimated bills which turn out to be more than the actual reading.
He said council should not ignore the fact that some of its bills were an estimate and the residents were not content with the figures.
