THE Covid-19 pandemic has adversely affected Beitbridge Municipality’s capacity to collect more revenue from ratepayers and businesses who are also finding the going tough under the obtaining economic environment.
The state of affairs has seen the local authority failing to implement major capital projects that are part of its transformation agenda from being a town into a medium city.
In an interview, town clerk, Mr Loud Ramakgapola said so far council was only collecting less than 20 percent of its targeted monthly revenue.
This year the municipality adopted an RTGS$935 million annual budget and ZW$78 million was expected to have been collected in January alone.
However, as of January 31, they had only managed to collect ZW$13, 3 million.
According to Mr Ramakgapola, the situation has seen them failing to construct a new landfill as planned this year.
“We are collecting less than we had planned for and this is seriously affecting our capacity to implement major capital projects to modernise our town,” he said.
“You will note that our town has been gradually developing and hence we need to match that with other critical services. So, we are working on a number of initiatives to improve our capacity to deal with issues of solid waste management”.
Mr Ramakgapola said they had planned to raise ZW$583, 200 to construct a modern landfill, which will be located after Makhakavhule Cemetery.
The current landfill, located west of Dulivhadzimu Long Distance bus terminus was built in the 1970s and does not match the town’s transformation status.
“We have identified a site and would want more resources to start on the excavations and the major civil works. Our hope is that when our revenue base gradually improves, we may fully implement this project,” said Mr Ramakgapola.
He said they were collecting around 700 tonnes of solid waste monthly although they believed that the 80 000 population was producing an excess of over 1000 tonnes of solid waste.
The town clerk said the town’s population was growing rapidly and hence the need to be ahead in terms of setting proper service delivery standards.
-State Media