Harare City Council mayor Jacob Mafume says the local authority has no information on the number of households it is billing for its services.
There are fears that the lack of a proper database is costing council millions in potential revenue at a time when the broke local authority is failing to deliver efficient services.
The council is also struggling to address its massive debt, which stands at a staggering ZiG 940 million.
Council is also struggling to pay for water chemicals, procure plant and equipment, and pay creditors and service providers on time.
Addressing a full council meeting in the capital last week, Mafume read the riot act saying heads must roll over the billing shambles.
He demanded that the responsible authorities in the housing, planning and finance department should convene an urgent meeting to address the anomaly.
"As l speak, we don't know how many households we are billing in the city,” Mafume said.
“We need to know the numbers;
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“The departments that are in charge should not waste time, but sit down and come up with answers.”
The government rejected the council’s 2024 budget proposal citing numerous irregularities and shortcomings.
In particular, the Local Government ministry highlighted the lack of a functional Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, resulting in poor revenue collection as well as service delivery.
The ERP tracks business resources — cash, raw materials, production capacity — and the status of business commitments: orders, purchase, and payroll.
The absence of the ERP system has resulted in errant council officials fleecing the local authority.
Council dumped the ERP in 2019.
“We are sleepwalking into a disaster,” Mafume said.
He ordered town officials to work on statistics on houses they are billing and the total amount of money they are collecting per month.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa recently appointed a commission of inquiry to investigate Harare City Council's operations for a period stretching to 2006.
The municipality has over the years grabbed headlines for grand corruption involving council management as well as councillors.
For years, council officials including councillors have rejected lifestyle audits.
