Harare residents are still in doubt of the new system which was introduced by the City council amid reports that they are still failing to pay their rates.
The City council announced that the billing system has been installed after four months but as of today, Wednesday, some residents said they could not pay their rates because the system is still down.
One resident took to his micro-blogging site, Twitter and said: “I went to Mount pleasant to pay rates this morning. I haven’t received a city council bill in 3 months, so I requested a statement and I was informed that their billing system has been down for months”
“I asked for the balance and they couldn’t provide,” he said.
The City Council has not been able to implement council resolutions for the past 3 months which resulted to the billing system being down and affecting residents in payment of rates which have a direct impact on service delivery.
However, in an interview, Harare City Council corporate communications manager, Michael Chideme, said the new system has been successfully migrated so as to address the current situation.
“We would like to inform our Harare residents and ratepayers that we have successfully migrated to a new billing system, Sage Evolution System. It is easier to use than the BIQ,” he said.
The Harare City Council is an administrative body tasked with providing services for residence of Harare. Among other duties, the council is responsible for providing clean water, housing and accommodation, refuse collection facilities and health services.