Gweru Residents Stage Demo Over Poor Service Delivery, Hiking Of Bills
Gweru residents recently protested over Gweru City Council’s decision to hike bills and continued poor service delivery, according to 263Chat.
Protesters who were between 30 and 50 gathered at the Mkoba 6 high-density suburb administration offices and summoned one of the senior administrators demanding answers on why they were receiving bills not commensurate with services provided.
They had placards some of which read ‘Stop Estimating Our Bills’, ‘Tariff Rebasing Is Killing Us’, ‘Stop Property Attachments’, ‘We demand Water’ and ‘Stop Taking Us For Granted’.
After failing to get answers, the residents started singing, ‘Zvema dhisinyongoro taramba’ [we don’t tolerate nonsense], denouncing the official’s actions.
The demonstration was organised by members of the Gweru Residents and Rate Payers Association (GRRA) following a service delivery review meeting that was held at the Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) where several challenges were raised against the local authority.
Speaking after the flash demo, GRRA Executive Director Cornilia Selipiwe said residents had come to seek clarity on the billing system in light of poor services. He said:
Residents were here to seek clarity on how they are being billed because as you understand there is a water disconnection blitz that is underway but residents are saying yes they are being disconnected but the bills still come way too high.
So they were asking for an explanation from the person in charge here (Mkoba 6 administration offices) but the person in charge saw the number of people who had gathered and did not respond to their questions, I dont know whether it was fear.
So after failing to get answers they started singing showing their disappointment but the intention was to come and seek explanation on the water disconnections which is really not there, yet the bills come too high.
Residents said they were mainly outraged by the hiking of tariffs through the rebasing system, water meter estimates, property seizures and perennial water shortages.
Gweru City Council recently hiked its tariffs in the name of rebasing using the United States dollar interbank rate which saw bills going up as much as three times in the local currency, which left many residents fuming.
