Get involved! Inspect & comment on the Harare city budget
The City of Harare is currently preparing the 2011 city budget. The below letter from the Harare Residents’ Trust outlines where you can review the budget and how to contribute your comments on it.
Dear Resident,
This letter serves to advise you that on 30 November 2010, and at Town House, around 4.30pm, the City of Harare, through the Finance and Development Committee Chairperson Ruth Rufaro Kavunika, tabled the 2011 City Budget before the full council meeting. This means that you as a resident have to take appropriate action to safeguard your financial interests in the coming year. The City of Harare has proposed increases in water rates, rentals and seeks to maintain the rates of clinic charges at 2010 levels, among others. There are several other proposals that you need to be aware of. You have to plan ahead, and the budget is the best policy statement to guide you.
The Harare Residents’ Trust advises you to take time to go and inspect the proposed budget at Town House, and all District Offices immediately. In terms of the Urban Councils’ Act (Chapter 29:15), once you have inspected the proposed budget, it is your right to make necessary comments on the budget, either rejecting/opposing the proposed charges or accepting them.
If you object to the budget, it is your responsibility to write your objection letter addressed to the Town Clerk, at Town House, specifying your reasons for rejecting the proposals, indicating your physical home address within the 30-day stipulated period. You are safe and it is within your rights to do so. Once thirty (30) objections are lodged, the City of Harare has to revise the proposals downwards before finally approving the budget.
This is the only major opportunity to the citizen to comment on the budget, otherwise if you do not use your right at law to make objections or inspect the budget, you have no one but yourself to blame when the budget is implemented beginning January 2011. The City will simply implement the high rates if you do not raise your voice.
When you write your objections, make two copies, which have to be both stamped at Town House, to serve as evidence that you submitted them. Submit the other copy to the HRT as a record so that at the end of the 30-day period of inspection, the organisation can also verify that nothing outside the law is done by the council, since there is no water tight method of verification and adjudication that safeguards the interests of residents.
The HRT will keep you informed on the budget making process until it is finally approved. Thank you for being a responsible citizen.
You can reach the Harare Residents’ Trust on 0712-500402, 0774-354201 or 0772-869294 or email hretrust [at] yahoo [dot] com