Mash West Correspondent
Zvimba Rural District Council has bought 15 bulls worth $17 000 to reward headmen who convince the most number of their subjects in the villages to clear their debts. In an interview, the Zvimba RDC finance secretary Mr Blessing Chafesuka said the bulls were bought from Matopos Research Centre.

“We discovered that headmen are a powerful voice in the society, so we engaged them in a competition of encouraging their fellow villagers in their respective communities to pay their dues. So, the best 15 headmen are going to win a bull each. This promotion is also meant to promote livestock keeping in our area,” he said.

Mr Chafesuka said council had set a target to collect $5,3 million last year and surpassed the target by more than a million dollars. He said although they surpassed the target, the local authority was still owed a lot of money.

The local authority had a number of debtors who were not registered in their accounting system due to outdated manual systems, he said. The council has, however, upgraded its information communication technology systems in line with the ease of doing business reforms being spearheaded by Government.

Mr Chafesuka said council had since computerised its accounting systems, upgraded its wide area network and payment plan software. Council has also created a website for easy access to information.

“We improved our ICTs last year, this has helped us in improving revenue collection. We also realised that most of our clients were not registered on our database and we captured a lot of new accounts,” said Mr Chafesuka.

This means our debtors are going to increase because we are still updating the system.” Zvimba RDC is rated as one of the well-organised local authorities among rural councils in Zimbabwe, as evidenced by a number of awards it has been scooping at various fora.

Last year, Zvimba RDC chief executive Mr Peter Hlola was awarded the second runner-up prize during the Zimbabwe Investment Authority awards. The local authority also won the Best Performance Award in the Public Sector Awards.