KWEKWE City Council has been left with a few days\u2019 supply of water treatment chemicals, Mayor Angeline Kasipo has revealed.<\/p>\n
Kasipo told residents at a supplementary budget consultative meeting Friday that the municipality is faced with a critical situation after exhausting its government approved $26,9 million budget.<\/p>\n
She blamed runaway inflation for the financial mess the city finds itself in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city\u2019s budget which has been approved was prepared in US dollar terms. Our budget was prepared on 1:1 rate between USD and bond note.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we prepared the budget, we had forecasted that the inflation rate would be around 5%,\u201d Kasipo said.<\/p>\n
Changes to fiscal and monetary policy by central government has played havoc with a lot of budgets in both the private and public sector.<\/p>\n
The bond note\u2019s value has been sliding when compared to the US dollar rates.<\/p>\n
To stem the tide, government last week announced the ban on the use of the US$ in all local transactions, instead, designating the local dollar as the sole medium of exchange.<\/p>\n
Kasipo added: \u201cWe had budgeted $1 million for water and it has since been exhausted. When preparing for our budget, we didn\u2019t foresee the tumbling of the RTGS dollar. The recent turn of events has since gone beyond everyone else\u2019s expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n
In order to avert the impending health crisis in the city, Kasipo said government advised the local authority to craft a supplementary budget \u201cbased on cost recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an emergency. We have since run out of water treatment chemicals,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In a bid to cushion itself from the inflationary environment, the local authority said it will increase rates by over 300 %, a move which is being resisted by residents.<\/p>\n
Acting city finance director, January Mukandapi said the council is aiming to increase the budget to $41 million, up from $27 million.<\/p>\n
Among its top creditors, the local authority owes State power utility Zesa $18, 6 million and the Zimbabwe National Water Authority $1, 6 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KWEKWE City Council has been left with a few days\u2019 supply of water treatment chemicals, Mayor Angeline Kasipo has revealed. Kasipo told residents at a supplementary budget consultative meeting Friday that the municipality is faced with a critical situation after exhausting its government approved $26,9 million budget. She blamed runaway inflation for the financial mess […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":10711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[194,224,55,314],"class_list":{"0":"post-10708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-community","9":"tag-budget","10":"tag-council","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-water-shortage"},"yoast_head":"\n