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Uproar over sewerage charges and plastic bins
Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA)
May 15, 2007

THE City of Harare and the controversy-ridden Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) have both come up with controversial systems of looting resources from the already burdened residents in the low-density suburbs by making them pay for services they do not use.

Residents of Newlands have been furious for the past fortnight with the City of Harare after it asked them to pay for sewerage connections yet the majority of them have not connected to the main sewer system. They still use their septic tanks which are emptied once they fill up.

Their main concern is that they are being asked to fund a non-existent service, which they are not receiving. ZINWA has notified them that they will be billed for sewerage charges in spite of their septic tanks.

At the same time more residents are seriously worried that the City of Harare is going to bill them $400 000 each for new lidded bins. This information is contained in notices on April rates bills send out to residents in the low density suburbs. It indicates that residents will be billed the full cost of the new lidded plastic bins. It is suspected that the deal is benefiting someone in the City administration since the matter was never put to public tender, as far as residents are concerned.

Thereafter the bins will be ready for collection from district offices.

CHRA is worried and is investigating how this came into being and who authorized this mandatory way of ripping ratepayers' money. The public has never been consulted on this and the Associated urges the City of Harare to make public its position regarding this clear attempt to rob the public of their hard-earned cash. Those mostly concerned are the pensioners who have no source of money to pay for additional charges.

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