THE Harare City Council (HCC) is lobbying government to
allow it to collect rates in foreign currency from business and corporates that
have licences to trade in foreign currency as part of initiatives to strengthen
service delivery.
The facility has been granted to the Zimbabwe Revenue
Authority, where businesses that are trading in multi-currencies remit their
taxes in the same currency, in which the goods have been sold.
Speaking on the state of the city yesterday, Harare mayor
Herbert Gomba said the move would enable them to procure plant and equipment
that require foreign currency.
“The City of Harare appreciates the economic challenges our
residents are facing, hence we have tried to ensure that our rates and tariffs
remain sub-economic,” he said.
“We have, however, explored other revenue generation
streams, which we hope to implement next year. Council is also engaging
government in a bid to secure authority to charge certain ratepayers, services
and products in forex. The city is targeting such businesses to pay for
services in foreign currency, as well as those in the diaspora who might want
to purchase residential stands, among others,” he said.
“This will allow council to invest in service delivery
initiatives such as procurement of plant and equipment. The above is not
peculiar to Harare alone, because some fast-food outlets designated tourism
facilities are allowed to charge in forex.”
Gomba said they were proposing a 20% infrastructure
development tax on property developers when they connect their projects to
existing infrastructure, which will give the city money dedicated on
infrastructure development.
The mayor called on parliamentarians and councils to work
hand-in-hand to push the government to review the current tax laws.
To recover the estimated $800 million owed by ratepayers,
Gomba said council was lobbying Parliament to make legislative reforms so as to
give them garnishing powers, where they would start using force to get money
from individuals and corporates.
He said plans were underway to procure mobile modular water
treatment plants to cater for the disadvantaged areas such as Sentosa, which
have had perennial water challenges. Newsday
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