{"id":46844,"date":"2021-09-18T18:14:31","date_gmt":"2021-09-18T16:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/?p=46844"},"modified":"2021-09-18T17:06:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-18T15:06:41","slug":"hwange-sues-residents-over-100-million-unpaid-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.cc\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/hwange-sues-residents-over-100-million-unpaid-bills","title":{"rendered":"Hwange Sues Residents Over $100 Million Unpaid Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – Zimbabwe<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>The Hwange Local Board (HLB) has resolved to take legal action against ratepayers to recover over $100 million in outstanding bills.<\/p>\n

Ndumiso Mdlalose, the town secretary, said legal action was the last resort for the local authority after efforts to persuade defaulters to pay up hit a brick wall.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the year, HLB embarked on various strategies to recover the money, including door to door debt collection and sensitisation programmes by councillors. Said Mdlalose:<\/p>\n

We have rate defaulters that have gone beyond 120 days, and we have issued them with final demand letters, and from our computation, we are owed more than $100 million in non-paid rates.<\/p>\n

We exhausted all other means to try and convince the defaulters to pay.<\/p>\n

We were then left with one option, taking the legal route because the challenge we have is that people are reluctant to pay.<\/p>\n

Council said $14 million of the debt was accrued over the past three months, with Empumalanga Phase I, Mpumalanga\u2019s DRC section and Baobab\u2019s T-Section the suburbs with the highest number of defaulters.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Fidelis Chima, Greater Whange Residents Trust coordinator, criticised the decision to take legal action against residents saying it was too harsh.<\/p>\n

Most of Hwange\u2019s residents were employees of the Hwange Colliery Company, which has been struggling to pay its workers and those that it laid off over the years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. The Hwange Local Board (HLB) has resolved to take legal action against ratepayers to recover over $100 million in outstanding bills. Ndumiso Mdlalose, the town secretary, said legal action was the last resort for the local authority after efforts to persuade defaulters to pay up hit a brick wall. At the beginning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":46843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,35,15],"tags":[1493,2189,2851,4414,2850,19],"class_list":{"0":"post-46844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-community","9":"category-homepage-english","10":"category-twitter","11":"tag-africa-press","12":"tag-africa-press-zimbabwe-2","13":"tag-hlb","14":"tag-hwange-local-board","15":"tag-hwange-local-board-hlb","16":"tag-zimbabwe"},"yoast_head":"\nHwange Sues Residents Over $100 Million Unpaid Bills - zimbabwe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Hwange Local Board (HLB) has resolved to take legal action against ratepayers to recover over $100 million in outsta ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/hwange-sues-residents-over-100-million-unpaid-bills\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hwange Sues Residents Over $100 Million Unpaid Bills\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Hwange Local Board (HLB) has resolved to take legal action against ratepayers to recover over $100 million in outsta ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/hwange-sues-residents-over-100-million-unpaid-bills\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"zimbabwe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-09-18T16:14:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-09-18T15:06:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/sites\/14\/2021\/09\/img-614600662e1dd.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"540\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/hwange-sues-residents-over-100-million-unpaid-bills\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/hwange-sues-residents-over-100-million-unpaid-bills\",\"name\":\"Hwange Sues Residents Over $100 Million Unpaid Bills - 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