The city council has given people owing them money a grace period of three months to settle outstanding bills or they will have to pay those bills in US dollars at the prevailing bank rates.

People have lashed out beneath their tweets citing poor service delivery and have expressed that until service delivery matches the request city council is preaching to the choir.

In their tweet, the City of Harare noted that they are owed US$ 17 billion in outstanding bill payments. They also said that this is a challenge particularly because they source their goods and services at the black market rate yet their budget is pegged at the prevailing interbank rates. This is presumably why they are failing to deliver good service to the people.

As it stands many people in the city do not have access to clean drinkable water. Those that are privileged to have city council water running out of their taps are unable to drink it. Some people haven’t had city council water for years. This means that they have to rely on other sources for water.

Jojo tanks are popular because people have to buy them and pay for bulk water deliveries at no less than 25 USD per delivery. Most people cannot afford to pay for bulk water deliveries and also pay the city council for water they do not deliver most of the time.

Water is not the only problem. Refuse collection is another big problem in the city. The refuse trucks can collect waste months apart and they do not collect at all in some areas. This means that people have to find ways to dispose of their own garbage. Some irresponsible people dump the waste. Others pay an extra fee to have refuse collectors carry their trash.

People in the city generally feel it is unfair to be charged for services that they do not use. Some have resorted to not paying their city council bills at all and have commented under the tweet that they will not be moved by the statement.

The post City Of Harare Says Pay Now Or Pay In USD appeared first on Provoker Magazine.

Using a public or council toilet in Harare is not for the faint-hearted. Most of them have gained the reputation of being overwhelmingly disgusting. One would have to prepare themselves to see anything on the ground from urine to faeces and condoms. That’s if you even manage to stand the smell.

The City of Harare has also expressed in the tweet that the toilets would need a capital injection to function, something they presumably do not have. But funny enough…that is the city council’s responsibility. How expensive is it to run a toilet? It would make more sense for them to make people pay a small fee to use toilets that go towards buying detergents and paying the attendants to clean the facilities.

The City of Harare already has a reputation of looking for money through introducing fines or increasing fines. They also already struggle with waste collection. By making this announcement, the City of Harare has officially declared that they are unable to maintain public toilets and they have decided to turn them into a business instead. Is it possible to stoop any lower?

The post Oh Crap! City Of Harare Resorts To Renting Out Public Toilets appeared first on Provoker Magazine.