No council debt cancellation this time for council bills says Chinamasa

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa yesterday said that the government was not going to order local authorities to write-off debts like what happened ahead of the 2013 elections. Most local authorities have complained that residents were not paying their bills with the expectation that the government would order another debt cancellation ahead of the 2018 harmonised elections. Speaking at the Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe’s business conference in Harare, Chinamasa said:

The Ministry of Local Government has already submitted to us as Treasury a list of local authorities that incurred losses due to the cancellation of the outstanding bills. Let me say that that will never happen again

Can you believe it that the amount of losses that we incurred through that cancellation is half a billion, so where are we going to get that money? It puts a big hole into your finances, so that we acknowledge. The matter is currently under consideration and we remain very positive that we will find practical ways to assist the affected local authorities.

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