…Unpacks US$61 million 2025 budget

Ngoni Dapira

CITY of Mutare will conduct a trial run of a 100 prepaid smart meters by end of February targeting selected residential, industrial and commercial stands, but mostly prioritise commercial stands, Easterntimeszim has learnt.

This was revealed by the town clerk Blessing Chafesuka during a recently held press briefing where he announced the local authority’s approved US$61 million budget for the year 2025, which one could quickly call a mixed pot of elements.

The approved budget is characterized by some positive efforts towards new water management systems, whilst on the flip side there are tariff increments and the introduction of a new sports levy. This is all in a bid to meet the inescapable growing demands of services delivery in the wake of limited resources from central government says the municipal head Chafesuka.

Chafesuka revealed that though they had initiated their own prepaid meters pilot project there will also be the government programme of prepaid smart water meters which will be implemented by a company called Helcraw Electrical, but they are still to work on final modalities of how the project will be carried out.

City of Mutare town clerk Blessing Chafesuka

“Our engineers are finalizing the modalities of identifying the stands to put up the prepaid smart meters and how the pilot phase will work, but this trial will be mainly on commercial stands. Whilst we are launching this pilot project as the City of Mutare, the government has also since launched the prepaid smart water meters as a national project and it will be implemented by a company called Helcraw Electrical,” said Chafesuka.

In a bid to improve on water management systems, the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works is pushing for a shift from traditional monthly water billing to a prepaid smart water meter system. The Local Government Minister Daniel Garwe said it will start off in Harare and later spread countrywide.

“We were also engaged by the central government on that project. As council we then resolved that these two projects should run concurrently, but we have not set out the agreed terms with Helcraw. However, it’s now a council resolution and I can announce now that we are concluding discussions on how we are going to cooperate with Helcraw. But the news is prepaid smart water meters are now here,” said the town clerk.

Chafesuka who was the former finance director, but had been in acting capacity as town clerk since the death of his predecessor Joshua Maligwa in January 2022, was appointed the substantive town clerk last year in November. This will be his first year as the substantive head of the local authority.

Unpacking his 2025 approved budget, the town clerk highlighted that the budget was developed after thorough consultations with residents last year. He assured residents that council remains committed to enhancing development of  infrastructure and essential services.

“We also want to inform our ratepayers for them to befriend and prepare the metering that is coming effectively end of February. We billed January using old tariffs because the budget had not yet been approved,” said Chafesuka.

He said prepaid smart meters augment modernization and the concept of smart cities through efficient use of social amenities as well as costs recovery in the production of water supply to residents sustainably.

“We tried as much as possible to consolidate the views of the people. Some of the suggestions were accepted and some were dropped and the budget went through the approval stages and the Minister of Local Government approved our 2025 budget,” he explained.

The local authority increased tariffs for 2025 by 5 percent effective 1 February, except for the roads levy which was calculated differently but was also increased. There was also the introduction of a sports levy to resuscitate dilapidated recreational facilities and build new ones as well.

Chafesuka added that the old tariffs, fire, education and street lighting would be consolidated together with rates, instead of separating them as was done before.

“Our new approved sports levy special rates will be US$1 per property for both high density and low density suburbs and US$5 for commercial properties. There will be no special rate for recurrent expenditure. The special rate will be directed for the improvement of sports infrastructure as capital expenditure.”

He explained that roads are being destroyed by the perennial heavy rains and storms citing that on average 25km of roads are being destroyed and in need of total reconstruction, but they have been only managing to fix 1.5km of the damaged roads each year. He said the gap is serious which is why they proposed a separate tariff increment for roads.

Under the new budget, the special road tariff was increased in high-density areas from $1.19 to $1.26, low-density areas from $2.39 to $9.16, commercial and institutional areas from $11.91 to $51, and industrial areas from $11.91 to $226. He said the adjustments will contribute to expanding road rehabilitation efforts across the city.

“It’s a steep increase we acknowledge, but understand that no one else can fix our roads besides us. Our roads need our intervention. Whilst this increase is high we are also targeting to improve from 1.5km to 7 km of road rehabilitation a year. But this is still not enough,” said Chafesuka.

Adding, “2025 we want to consolidate what we started. There are a number of projects still to be completed. The local authority has struggled to collect rates for essential services, including water and sanitation, with issues such as meter tampering and illegal connections exacerbating the situation. Residents have also raised concerns about the accuracy of the billing system, which has often been based on estimates and non-existent services,” further explained Chafesuka as he implored residents to support his vision as the new municipal boss.

The 2025 budget includes funds for devolution as well as loan funded and own sourced projects.

“The devolution fund will be US$1.2 million, but usually this comes as equivalent to our local currency. We are targeting mainly none revenue water and sewer water projects,” he said.

Chafesuka applauded development partners and staff for working flat out on the Gimboki water pipeline project as a milestone project. Since 2007, residents of Gimboki have been struggling to access clean and affordable water forcing them to rely on water barons who were charging as much as US$10 per 1000 litres of water.

“In this budget we are also going to be providing water for Gimboki residents in Dangamvura. Phase One has already been done as we have started engaging Gimboki residents for them to start applying for individual collections per household. We had also already started providing services to Gimboki as we now have a Primary school and a clinic. This year we will also start collecting refuse using skip bins and each household after connecting to water will also start using the sewer,” said the town clerk who could not hide his happiness in finally resolving the contentious and longstanding issue of water in Gimboki.

Adding, “We still have a lot of areas that need water, especially areas which were under private developers. Even Area 3 in Dangamvura, the moment we connect Gimboki, your problems will end because we put a bigger pipe. For Gimboki Phase 2 we will also use communal water STEMS (kiosks) where people can buy water using a tap card that is juiced up. This will be far much cheaper than what is being charged by the water barons at the moment.”

Chafesuka appealed for support from ratepayers to effectively improve on service delivery. “I am really appealing to our ratepayers to pay your bills so that I am put to task on service delivery.  We sink or swim together that’s all I can say.”

On income generating projects he said they are at feasibility stage but hope to start implementing some of the projects this year.

“In terms of projects under feasibility study this year for income generation the local authority intends to do a mini hydro project plant, start a company to produce water meters, build a truck-stop to take advantage of the robust business from the Beira Corridor used by haulage trucks in transit to the Mozambican port of Beira, open a water bottling plant and also build fuel service stations. All the projects will be implemented in phases and based on the outcome of the feasibility studies,” said the ambitious Mutare municipality boss who said he is motivated and geared to change the face of Mutare.